Titan Knight
by The Phiend
Summary: An innocent mistake involving Starfire. A not-so-innocent crime involving Control Freak. What happens when two bizarre chains of events collide? Up to Chapter 11: Prepare for Battle.
1. In the Beginning

_(Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. Nor a number of other media franchises that are alluded to, in particular those of Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and the A-Team; nor any portrayals thereof. Nor any person involved in the portrayals thereof...thereof. Especially not David Hasselhoff, who is quite an accomplished actor despite the impressions Cyborg and Raven may seem to have.)_

* * *

"Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

Cyborg got out from under the T-Car in the Tower's garage. Not because he hadn't identified Starfire as the speaker already, but because it didn't seem right not to talk to her face-to-face. "This is kind of a one-person job," was his reply. The system he was working on was only accessible from the underside, there simply wouldn't be enough room for two people to work on it.

Starfire was undaunted. "But surely I can...ooh, what does this fascinating device do?"

That fascinating device happened to be a plasma welding torch. "Whoa—" Cyborg didn't have time to properly express his shock before Starfire's curiosity located the trigger.

The sudden gout of flame was punctuated by a certain Tamaranean's squeal of surprise. She quickly released the trigger, as well as the torch itself; but the damage was already done, in the form of a large scorch mark on the T-Car's door.

Cyborg would've stared at the spot, mouth agape, for longer if Beast Boy hadn't done the exact same thing that morning. As it was, his compounded aggravation at having to repair the door, again, quickly caught up with him.

"...it had the gas?" was the first, sheepish, remark from the honorary pyromaniac of the hour.

He turned his head to look at her, and was not impressed by her forced smile. Attempting not to overreact...or react, for that matter...he turned back to the spot, and let out a long sigh.

Now Starfire's voice was filled with remorse. "Oh...I am most sorry for the fiery damage. I shall assist—"

He snapped his head in her direction, imperceptibly shaking with rage as his self-restraint started to break. "Star. I think it'd be best if you left, I'll take care of it myself."

And with that, he turned away from her and started digging through his tools to start re-repairing the door. True, she'd got off scot-free compared to what he'd said to Beast Boy, and he'd start yelling if she stayed there another minute. But he still knew he didn't want to see the look on her face when she went away.

* * *

"Dude, he just said you should leave?!?! Aww man, he threw _me _out the door! Like it was _my_ fault the T-Car isn't flameproof!"

Starfire slumped onto the couch in the command center, across from Beast Boy. She wasn't _completely_ certain Beast Boy was trying to cheer her up; but if he was, it wasn't working. She couldn't shake the feeling that, unintentionally or not, she had forced Cyborg to undertake a loathsome task; and more distressingly, that her friend didn't want to speak with her.

Beast Boy was undaunted. Possibly because he wasn't in a position to _be_ daunted. Regardless, he continued. "Don't worry Star, Cyborg'll fix the door and he'll forget about the whole thing. Until you do it again. But maybe _that's_ reserved for me, too. Anyway, why don't you watch TV with me? Get more worthwhile things on your mind than the T-Car."

Starfire considered it. There wasn't anyone more experienced in annoying Cyborg than Beast Boy, and she decided he was probably an expert in dealing with Cyborg's moods as a result. She ultimately decided to trust his judgement, for the time being at least. "I shall endeavor to distance my thoughts from their troubles. Please, what television program are we to watch? Perhaps a documentary on potato farming, or—"

"Dude! I said 'worthwhile', not 'educational'! Bleh. Now let me see...." With that, he began the most rudimentary activity associated with Beast Boy: Pressing the channel increment button on the remote. He absentmindedly rattled off brief channel descriptions as he went: "...soap opera...commercial...Warp Trek...French chef guy...commercial...news...DUDE!"

The abrupt change in tone and volume startled Starfire, to the point that she jumped out of her sitting position and subsequently fell to the floor. As she picked herself up, she briefly pondered if someone had neglected to mention that today was some sort of "Startle Starfire" holiday. Perhaps "Startlefire Day".

Beast Boy's eyes were fixated on the screen, at such intensity that Starfire doubted he even noticed her fall. He pronounced, in that strangely reverent tone of his, the subject of his fascination: "Knight Rider."

Starfire turned her gaze towards the screen, and was quickly confused. "Please, do not the knights ride the horses, and not the cars?"

"Knight's his last name. Well, actually it was Long and then he got shot in the head but he lived and now he's got a new name and everything, but it's still Knight now."

"And do the cars of the Knight always crash into the wall, and not simply open a door?"

"Dude, it's an indestructible talking super-robot-car! Of COURSE it always crashes through the wall!"

Starfire didn't reply, nor did she ask anything more. Something about that last answer stuck in her mind. Thinking it over, she narrowed it down to the words "indestructible" and "car". But, what about an indestructible car would....

She gasped, her face beaming with revelation. "That is the solution! If I were to—"

The red lights, klaxon, and Robin declaring "Titans, trouble!" cut short her exterior monologue. It was a sad necessity that making things right with Cyborg would have to wait; the city needed her attention first.


	2. Unlikely Teamup

"Stop right...there?!?!"

Robin was rather shocked at who they had found. Not because robbing a tech complex would be unusual, but because of precisely _what _he was taking.

"GREETINGS, TITANS! Once again it is I, your arch-nemesis, CONTROL FREAK!"

Beast Boy wasn't impressed. "Dude, why are _you_ stealing a car? Isn't that kind of...uh..."

"_Mundane _for you?" Raven filled in.

Control Freak, with an expression that could only be imagined to _pretend _it was dignified, answered: "Just as the Jedi must acquire simple crystals to craft their lightsabers, so too must I stoop low to begin my masterpiece." His expression reverted to normal. "Besides, it's a black Firebird Trans Am."

Beast Boy eyes shone like little stars. "Dude...are you gonna get one of those red thingies that goes 'whoosh-whoosh'?" Robin couldn't help but notice the little smile that came to Starfire's lips at this. He had to guess she understood whatever the heck Beast Boy was talking about.

Control Freak's face went slack for a moment as he processed the simplicity of Beast Boy's question. Then, his own eyes seemed to ignite with a newfound idea. "Yeah, that'd be _so cool_!"

"Sweet...."

"Uh, Beast Boy?" Robin interrupted the shapeshifter's reverie.

And Beast Boy caught up with the situation at hand. "Not sweet."

A smirk came to Control Freak's face, as he drew his remote. "Since you like the red scanner, you should be able to appreciate _this_!" And with a press of a button, a squad of several robotic soldiers bearing strange rifles appeared and came to life, each with such a scanner where eyes would normally be.

Beast Boy seemed shocked at first, but quickly regained his senses...although not in the most productive direction. "Aww man, _original series_ Cylons? Why couldn't it have been the new one, with Tricia or Grace or whoever?"

Control Freak answered, somewhat condescendingly, "Oh please, like the network would really allow us to show the one that has _real_ guns?" Then his face and tone became dead serious. "And what do you have against Maren Jensen?"

"He-_lloooooo?_ _That_ Athena isn't a _Cylon_."

"Oh. Right. Well...."

Robin was about to capitalize on the situation, when he saw the door of a van screaming towards him in his peripheral vision. He backflipped just in time to avoid being flattened against the wall by the piece of metal. As he and the rest of the Titans adjusted to face this new threat, a familiar voice came from a familiar body-suited foe.

"Enough nerd talk. Adonis needs no help to take you down. Adonis WANTS no help to take you down."

With an approving smirk, Control Freak pressed a button on his remote again, and the Cylons disappeared. "I'll meet back with you here." And with that, Control Freak took off with his automotive prize. As much as Robin would've liked to have stopped Control Freak, Adonis' incoming mass made itself the priority.

"Titans, go!"

"Bring it on!"

Beast Boy was the first. The ceiling being too low for his T-Rex form, he transformed into a bull instead, and counter-charged Adonis. The technique didn't work any better then the last time he tried it, however. In fact it was worse; Adonis channeled his momentum into a two-fisted swing, stopping his own movement and simultaneously sending Beast Boy flying off to the side.

"You can't fight like a man _or_ an animal."

Next was Robin, who hurled a salvo of explosive discs at the armored behemoth. Adonis' response was to grab a nearby compact car, and gingerly toss it in front of himself. The discs impacted the small white vehicle and detonated, pushing the car backwards just enough to put it back in Adonis' reach. When the smoke started to clear, Robin was greeted with the sight of an entire _vehicle_ tumbling in his general direction.

"Lame."

As soon as Robin leaped out of the way, the car was struck by a shot from Cyborg's sonic cannon. Its underside exposed at that angle, it had no hope of surviving and exploded, showering metal fragments all around. Cyborg backed up, cannon locked straight ahead, ready for another car to come careening through the smoke. He was not as prepared for Adonis coming at him from the side with a flurry of jabs. The assault left the hero dizzy, before he was simply smacked out of the way.

Raven, for her part, lashed at Adonis' mech suit with dark energy ribbons. The resulting scratches were quite noticeable, but Adonis didn't seem to be impeded as he ran towards her. She tried to fly up out of his reach...and failed to elude his grasp. Normally she'd be happy that she wasn't simply swatted like a fly the way Beast Boy was. Adonis' disgusting purr and the metallic finger brushing up and down the back of her calf made this an exception. The words coming out of his mouth weren't an improvement, either: "You like it rough, babe? Sorry, I'm a little busy now, but maybe after this we ca—"

A starbolt to the side of his head cut his indecent proposal short, but didn't do much more than that. He pushed Raven away and turned in the direction of the attack, and saw an incoming Tamaranean princess. He attempted to counter her punch with one of his own; her fist struck his. Despite the mass difference, the sound of creaking metal showed it was Starfire who had the advantage. He starting backing off, parrying blows, her offering no quarter. But as Starfire placed a kick, he grabbed her instead of blocking. The pained look on his face showed that the attack had inflicted some real damage, but Starfire was too surprised to react before Adonis threw her behind him.

A well placed explosive disc detonated inside one of the scratches Raven had placed, making the nearby armor begin to tear away. A pair of telekinetic arms pulled the dense sheet of metal apart further, and a sonic blast struck the newly-exposed surface. Sparks flew as a flurry of starbolts impacted the weaker section of metal, followed by another attempt at the Beast Boy bull bash. This one struck true, knocking Adonis to the ground.

A well-polished, full-sized black van drove to the side of the action, at a speed greater than any van had a right to be capable of. The large side door opened, revealing a back wall filled with digital displays. Control Freak stepped into view from the cab, brandishing his remote. With a press of a button, his Cylon squad reappeared and began firing, sending the Titans for cover.

"If the Titans are done playing," he said, "let's get out of here."

Adonis wordlessly complied, hunching over to fit in the door. Then the door slid shut and the van started to pull away. Having been inadequate to subdue two Colonial Warriors in their own series, the Cylon Centurions were little more than time-wasting decoys against the superior capabilities of Starfire and Raven; the boys, their assistance unneeded against the Cylons, attempted to give chase to the van. An oil slick trail, deployed by the van, halted their advance; even causing Beast Boy's cheetah form to slip and fall into the oil, and by the time the Titans had recovered the van was well out of their range.

Beast Boy, in human form again, stood up and pointed at the trail. "They're getting away!"

Cyborg just looked at him. "Uh, yeah."

"Sorry, thought someone should say it."

Robin sighed, as Starfire and Raven caught up with the rest of the team. "Control Freak and Adonis, working together?"

"Yeah," answered Cyborg, "who'd have seen _that_ coming?"

Beast Boy, meanwhile, was finally aware that the oil had soaked _through_ his uniform. "Eww, nasty!"

"Seriously," Raven agreed. "Why can't he paw at Starfire, like the _rest_ of the leches?" Her eyes widened as she heard the words that had just come out of her mouth. She, and everyone else, silently turned their heads towards Starfire, who was simply staring back at Raven. Raven could hear her own heartbeat, unable to sense anything except the apprehension felt by...everyone except Starfire, herself included. Would Starfire be upset? Would she end up expressing her anger, or say something worse?

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Starfire spoke, matter-of-factly. "Perhaps he is a fan of...the legs?"

_Definitely_ worse.

"Beast Boy," Raven stated with an eerie calm, "you are covered in oil. Comment, and I _will_ ignite you."

"I wouldn't—I mean I didn't—" The sudden cacophony of shattering glass echoing throughout the garage, followed by glass fragments being pulverized into powder, was sufficient to procure Beast Boy's silence.


	3. The Aftermath

"Man, it's been twenty minutes and I _still_ can't believe Control Freak and Adonis could tolerate each other," Cyborg said from the driver's seat of the T-Car.

"Dude, tell me about it," came Beast Boy's response from the back seat. "The Geek and the Jock are like, natural enemies! I know Control Freak's into breaking reality, but this is...hardcore!"

Starfire, sitting across from Beast Boy, posited a different question. "Are we sure Raven is OK? She seemed most upset before she went to our tower by herself."

The line of thought caused Beast Boy to clam up, literally. It was Robin, in the front passenger seat, who made an attempt at an answer. "She's fine, Starfire. She just...well you...and she's...." Robin shook his head. "Maybe it'd be better if you ask her."

"It'd be better for _us_...." Cyborg muttered.

Robin quickly acted to steer the conversation away from the subject. "Cyborg, have you got any leads yet?"

"Man, you just asked like five minutes—Oh. Nothing to follow yet. Hmm...just got a message from some security guy at the Wemakeitso Corporation, who owns that building, and they've got their team analyzing the break-in. Said they'll let us know what they find as soon as they can, and if we're lucky they'll have tracked down a transponder or two and can give us the exact location of the stolen goods."

"Did they say what was stolen?"

"Says most of what they took was...." After pausing to take a few glances at the readout on the T-Car's dashboard display, he continued: "....Integrity field cells and high-yield servomotors."

"Dude," interrupted Beast Boy, who had reverted to human form unnoticed. "I saw that screen. I may not be able to read that fast, but that's _definitely_ not what it said!"

Cyborg replied, "No, it said things like 'multiple twelve-millimeter hexagonal localized kinetic stress diffusion field generator assemblies'. So I said 'integrity field cells' instead."

"...oh. That's awesome! And...you know what _else_ would be awesome? Putting a KITT scanner on the T-Car."

"No."

Beast Boy continued, undaunted. "Voice chip that's not modern but beats the socks off of Brain's?"

"No."

"Molecular bonded shell?"

Cyborg lowered his voice for this one. "Still out of stock."

"Aww man...Turbo boo—"

Cyborg had had enough. "NO! FIRST YOU FRY THE DOOR, THEN YOU WANT TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO TO THE _REST _OF THE CAR? WHAT is WRONG with you?!"

Robin could only look on in bemusement, while Starfire sunk into her seat.

Cyborg wasn't done yet, however. "THIS CAR IS A NO-HASSELHOFF ZONE, YOU GET ME?"

"FINE!" was Beast Boy's imitation of acceptance. "Just tryin' to make your car cool...."

* * *

Starfire knocked on Raven's door. "Raven?"

The door opened partway, just enough to make Raven's standing form visible. "What?"

"Are you feeling well? I did not mean to upset you."

"I'm fine." The door closed.

Starfire knocked again. Once more the door opened, this time with Raven waiting for Starfire to say what she wanted.

"Please, why were you upset? I do not understand what I did wrong."

"Don't worry about it." Once more, the door closed.

Starfire stood there for a few seconds, considering that it might be best if she left Raven alone now. But in the end, Starfire decided it was more important that she know why her friend was upset, to avoid doing so again in the future. She hesitantly knocked again.

Starfire could hear Raven's angry footsteps well before she opened the door. "_What._" Starfire was fairly sure Raven was emitting some sort of heat field as well, she could feel herself sweating as she saw the bitter face.

Starfire tried to say everything in one sentence: "Please I do not wish to upset you again and today it is as though everything I do upsets my friends like with Cyborg and the fire then Beast Boy and the rider of the knight and now you and the—"

"Starfire. Slow down. And breathe." Raven was willing to accommodate Starfire's apparent desperation, as she returned to a more standard expression. "What about Cyborg?"

"This afternoon, I tried to help with the T-Car..." She paused, fidgeting with her fingers. "...and accidentally made the burns on the door."

"I thought that was Beast Boy."

"He did the same, in the morning."

"Oh."

"Please...why are you upset by talking about...the legs?"

Raven sighed. "Fine. Starfire, do you know what happens when you talk about my legs?"

Starfire shook her head.

Raven continued. "_Everyone looks at my legs_. It was embarrassing at the time."

"But then...why do you not wear the pants?"

"_Not helping, Starfire,_" Raven hissed.

"Eep! I am most sorry...again." Starfire hung her head in shame.

"...this really hasn't been a good day for you, has it?"

Starfire shook her head.

"Look, it's OK. Don't worry. I don't care about my legs being...exposed, usually. Otherwise I _would_ wear pants significantly more often. But Adonis is...creepy."

"Oh....I think I understand now. I shall endeavor not to speak of your legs in the future."

"Thank you." Raven went to close the door.

"Raven?"

Raven exhaled sharply, but the door remained open. "Yes, Starfire?"

"What should I do with Cyborg? He is still angry about the T-Car being burned twice."

"I really doubt he's mad at you _personally_, Starfire; he saves that for Beast Boy. Speaking of Beast Boy...did he make any jokes about me when you guys came back to the Tower?"

"No. When I asked why you were upset, he turned into...the Dravatz."

"What's a...'Dravatz'?"

"Oh! I mean the clam. I am sorry, I get the two confused sometimes."

"O...K....Anyway, if you want my suggestion, I think your best use of time is to keep Beast Boy occupied away from the T-Car, let Cyborg have some time to cool down. You said something about the 'rider of the knight'? Do you happen to mean the Knight Rider television show?"

"Yes! Beast Boy and I were watching it before we had to go fight Control Freak and Adonis. Beast Boy seemed annoyed that I did not understand about the show."

"If you suggest staging an all-night marathon of the show to him, I'm certain that'll keep you two occupied. And he'll probably be less annoyed as you learn more about it, too."

"Wonderful! Thank you, Raven, you have been most helpful."

"Sure. Can I...go now?"

"Eehehe...yes, I shall avoid disturbing you further."

* * *

Cyborg spotted Robin walking down one of the corridors of Titans Tower. "Yo man," he inquired, "where you been? It's almost midnight!"

"Trying to track down Adonis and Control Freak, checking their expected hangouts for leads."

"You find anything?"

"Yes, but not where they are _now_. Found out where they may have met. Both of them attended a tech conference last month, and the staffers on hand remember seeing individuals matching their descriptions together, outside the 'Future of Digital Automobiles' presentation."

"Huh. Now how would someone as conspicuous as either of those two get into an event like that?" Cyborg pondered as Raven walked into the conversation.

"Reception said they saw an overweight guy with a shabby jacket and an air of superiority, and a skinny guy who acted tougher than he could ever be; and assumed they were socially-inept nerds."

"Can't fault their deductive skills," Cyborg commented.

Robin took a deep breath. "I still can't believe they got away from us. How is it possible that _no one_ saw that van _or_ Adonis after it left the industrial district?"

Raven responded. "Control Freak can transport himself, and us, into television shows; and you can't imagine how he could hide a van?"

"I have no doubt that he _could_ hide his van, but I have a hard time thinking he _would_. He loves showing off. Speaking of excessive displays...do either of you know _why_ there's twelve gallons of margarine in the command center? Or why Starfire and Beast Boy are the only ones in there watching...whatever it is they're watching?"

"They're holding an all-night marathon of Knight Rider," said Cyborg. "I'm not in there because it exceeds my daily threshold of Hasselhoff exposure."

"And I'm not in there because it doesn't concern me," continued Raven. "And if you saw the margarine but not the popcorn, there's something seriously wrong with one of you."

For a moment, Robin stood there, a single eyehole of his mask wide in confusion. Then he shook his head, and tried to move towards a more productive line of conversation. "I take it we never heard back from the Wemakeitso Corporation?"

"Well we did," Cyborg answered, "but they didn't have a location for us. Said they'd keep working at it though, get some of their other facilities setup for scanning too. Hopefully have better news by tomorrow afternoon. They did mention some other things, though; I was waiting for you to get here to tell you."

"We should discuss this with the whole team present—"

"Robin," Raven interrupted, "just let them be for now, we'll fill them in later. It'll be best for everyone."

"Yeah," Cyborg agreed. "There's no way you're going to get anything useful out of Beast Boy until their marathon's over."

"...You're probably right," Robin said after a bit of consideration. "What did they tell us?"

"First, " Cyborg began, "they concluded that the integrity field cells and the servomotors were their main targets. They grabbed those from storage, then started after the closest things that were easy to remove. We don't know what they're planning to _do_ with them, though; the tech guys said that given sufficient power, they could boost the performance of most existing servos by installing the new motors and hooking up an integrity field to handle the increased stress."

"That could be _anything_," Robin said. "Satellite dishes, industrial machinery, automated turrets, aircraft control....We don't know what Control Freak has access to."

"No kidding. Second, we got the personal gratitude of the CEO of the corporation. That van of Control Freak's van had the capacity to carry off several million more dollars worth of their inventory, something he didn't do because we forced him to abort the break-in early. As a way of saying thanks, we've been authorized to purchase some of the gear from their long-term-storage at wholesale cost. I hope you don't mind, but I've picked out a few things...."

"I don't mind, though I'd like to see what they have myself. But it seems a little strange that they aren't offering to just _give_ us something, if they want to give us a gift."

"It _is_ kind of odd, but they explained it...somewhat. They've been in a bit of a financial bind lately, and with the break-in they've decided that this stuff has been in storage so long, it's just a liability for theft, and it's time to offload it. It's not state-of-the-art, but they've got some really fancy stuff there."

"I suppose they really can't afford to just give stuff away, then. Let's regroup in the morning, go over what they'll offer. Did they say anything else?"

"Yeah, actually." Cyborg smirked at Raven. "They asked how all that glass was reduced to powder so quickly, they know someone in the recycling industry who'd make a killing with that kind of efficiency." Raven's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, then her gaze fell ever so slightly towards the floor, before Cyborg continued. "I told them it was an unpredictable side effect of pushing a power beyond its tolerance, and attempting to recreate it would be best described as 'suicidal'. And encouraged them not to deliberate on the prospect further," he added with a wink. Raven shot a smirk of her own back at Cyborg in response.

"Well," Robin said, "I'm going to look through Control Freak's usual chatrooms and message boards, see if he's boasted about his plans or mentioned something about his hideout that we can use."

"Already did," Cyborg said, "and haven't found anything. Except for a video clip of Beast Boy splattering on that oil slick. Which, coincidentally of course, is my new screensaver."

Raven spoke next. "Robin, it's midnight. Get some sleep."

"Uhh...why aren't _you_ asleep, Raven?" he asked in turn.

"Because your intense frustration at being eluded, and the sound of your voices, woke me up. Then I thought I might as well be here."

"Oh. Sorry. I...." Robin cleared his throat before continued. "I'll see what I can do. Good night, Raven. Cyborg." And he walked off in the general direction of his room.

Cyborg yawned, and stretched his arms into the air. "Time for bed."

"Cyborg?" Raven said to get his attention. "Could I...get that screensaver? Please?"

"Sure thing, Rae," he said with a grin.


	4. Her WHAT, Now?

"One at a time, ladies," Beast Boy muttered, still dreaming as his eyes slowly opened. "There's enough time for all...." His voice trailed off as he processed the unusual sight. It was clearly well into the day, and he was clearly looking out the window of the Titans' command center. He had clearly fallen asleep during the Knight Rider marathon that Starfire had ever so....

Clearly, he now realized who the long red hair in his face must belong to. His eyes widened, and the rest of his senses rapidly came online from the adrenaline. Arms wrapped around his chest. A particular spot of pressure on his left side, which he guessed was her ear, and a line of softer pressure along his left thigh. He had apparently become an unwitting pillow to a certain Tamaranean princess. He was a little confused in spite of his shock, however. Mainly because if he couldn't feel hard points from her spine along his leg, that must be her chest, and given her shape he thought he'd be able to discern her—

_"SNAP OUT OF IT,"_ he mentally berated himself. "_This is no _ordinary _hot girl, this is _Starfire_! This is just plain awkward, and _you're_ not helping!_"

"_Sorry,_" he mentally answered himself. "_But I bet it'd still be awkward if it _was _an ordinary hot girl._"

He was still left with a dilemma, however. If anyone was to come across this scene, he'd be embarrassed. Thoroughly. As in, he didn't think he could ever show his face around the Tower again, so he'd have to find that old Doom Patrol mask and glue it to his face. And that'd hurt. In an unconscious attempt to focus, he started whispering to himself. "OK. The worst thing that could happen is if Starfire wakes up and sees me like this. But...how do I get out of this? There's no way I could pry her arms apart, and there's not enough room to slip through. Think, think...."

Then, he saw a shape move into view. A blue shape. A cloak. Oh...no...Raven.

_**Raven**_**.**

Maybe Starfire waking up _wasn't_ the worst thing that could happen. His eyes widened even further. As she turned to look at him, he tried to stammer, but no sound could escape his throat. Pulse racing as she evaluated his position, positive his skin had _permanently_ turned red when she looked at him in the eye. She opened her mouth to speak, he made a failed attempt to prepare himself for the most biting remark that would ever be heard in the entire history of the universe—

"Beast Boy," she whispered. "_Hamster_."

Oh. Right, he could do that! He grasped the edge of a couch cushion with one hand, and simultaneously pulled himself towards the cushion and transformed into the tiny rodent. The momentum was preserved as his mass reduced, quickly popping him out of Starfire's unconscious grasp. He didn't have to consider the side effects of covering his face with glue after all.

"Oof!"

That was Starfire's voice. Turning around upon landing only confirmed this. His rapid departure had left a vacant space between Starfire's head and torso and the couch, a space gravity acted to remove. She was stirring now, and Beast Boy saw the emerald color of her now open eyes. Still in hamster form, he wanted to run, but his fear of being discovered by her overwhelmed him. He simply could not get himself to move, until a blue cloak once more entered into his view, breaking his line of sight. He finally followed his instinct to flee, only absentmindedly aware that Starfire and Raven began exchanging words.

"Raven?"

He ran along the cushions, towards the edge of the couch.

"Starfire."

He hopped off the edge.

"Where is Beast Boy?"

He landed on the floor.

"He...woke up before you did."

He darted around the corner, and rested against the outer edge of the couch to catch his breath.

"Oh. Where are Robin and Cyborg?"

Feeling out of danger, he was better able to listen to the dialog going on behind him.

"They've been in the garage most of the morning," Raven explained.

"Most of the morning?" repeated a puzzled Starfire. "But did we not just awaken?"

"Starfire, it's 11AM."

Beast Boy stood up, in human form once more. "Dude, we slept until almost noon? Sweet, that's like a rec—" His voice trailed off, again, as he saw Starfire's smiling face and remembered he was still supposed to be embarrassed, and highly concerned about Starfire thinking that something had happened. Cursing himself for being unable to maintain focus on a healthy thing like self-preservation, he made an attempt to act naturally, lest Starfire suspect something was wrong. "Oh. Hey Starfire. What's up?" He slowly realized that the forced grin he was wearing was far from looking natural.

Thankfully, the beaming Starfire didn't seem to notice. "I wish to thank you! It was a most glorious night!" What was she....What did they...."My head is now filled with the many tales of the Michael and the K.I.T.T. and the Garthe and the Devon and the Bonnie and the—" Oh. He exhaled the breath he didn't know he was holding.

Starfire's enthused recollection was interrupted by Raven's voice. "Starfire. Beast Boy. Since you're both here, sit down," she said as she sat down herself, in the middle of the couch. Beast Boy chose the side of the couch away from Starfire, slowly realizing that Raven could shed light on his secret any second. And was convinced that she would, as soon as the potential for his embarrassment was at its peak.

If that was true, the moment had not arrived, as she made no mention of it: "Last night, while you two were injecting your brains with concentrated Hasselhoff, Robin was out looking for Control Freak and Adonis. Found out they were seen together at some tech car thing." Must be trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

She continued. "Cyborg also got a message from the company that owns the building they broke into. Said they'd have to get more places looking, but hoped to have the location of their stolen stuff by this afternoon. Also said the stolen goods were mainly integrity field cells and high-yield servomotors. That means they could make any of a bunch of machines really strong, Beast Boy." Condescending _and_ nice, that's really low of her.

Starfire had a question. "Why have Robin and Cyborg been in the garage, if they do not know where we are going yet?" Beast Boy had to avoid looking at her face lest he start blushing, and ended up focused on Raven.

"Because....What are you staring at?" Raven was significantly more alert than Starfire this morning, much to Beast Boy's chagrin.

He fumbled for an excuse, but couldn't think fast enough, not with the two pairs of eyes looking at him for an answer. "Uhh—"

"Nevermind," Raven quickly decided with a shake of her head. "Robin, Cyborg and I went by the building again around 9. The company offered us a big discount on some of their inventory to thank us for cutting the robbery short, and the two of them had lists. They've been working, or playing, in the garage since then. There actually were some cool electronics, but once those two started geeking out and bragging about 'crossing the Twinkie streams' I had to get out of there." Oh man. _Oh man_. She's _covering_. To Beast Boy, that could only mean one thing: He'd gone across the border, from Torment Town to Blackmailville.

Starfire stood up. "If I may be the excused, friends," she said, "I wish to see how Robin and Cyborg are doing." And she started for the door.

"Starfire!" Raven said, successfully getting the Tamaranean's attention. Beast Boy waited for the hammer to drop...."Ask before you pick up any tools this time, OK?" Starfire nodded with a smile, then continued on her way.

And she left. Raven just let her leave, without telling her. "_What is she planning,_" he pondered. "_If she isn't telling Starfire, it must be because she plans to tell...someone else. Robin. Cyborg._" Another degree of alarm gripped Beast Boy. This simply was not a good morning for him. Or his heart.

"Raven!" he exclaimed. "Raven, you've gotta help me! You can _not_ tell Robin or Cyborg—"

"OK."

"—pleeeeease!" Wait, what did she just say? "What did you just say?"

"I said, 'OK'. As in, I won't tell Robin or Cyborg."

_Gasp_. She said '_OK_', without coercion! Convoluted plans must be unfolding before his very eyes! Still, he would not be comfortable letting on that he knew. "Wait...what's the catch?"

"What's the....There's no catch."

His mind reeled with the only conclusion it could grasp: "_She denies the catch, proving its existence! I've been caught by the catch!"_

Raven must have felt the panic welling up in his presently overworked heart, because she grabbed him by his shoulders and stared straight into his face as she spoke, quite plainly. "Beast Boy. Listen to me. I don't know if you fermented that margarine, or overdosed on it, or if you're high off of Starfire's shampoo, or what. But this risk of embarrassment is scaring _you_ to death, not _me_. And if you want to keep it a secret, you need to _not freak out_. Freak out, and the others will ask what's wrong. And we _both_ know that you'll blurt it out if you're asked. So, for your own sake, _calm down_."

While still convinced she had powerful ulterior motives to try to help him cover this up so well, the adrenaline had also jumpstarted his brain, and he realized what she said was right. He made a concerted effort to relax, which was only partially successful. But it was a start. "OK," he finally said.

"Alright," she said, letting go of his shoulders now that he had retained what sense he had. "Now, if you need a plan of some sort...Go take a bath, brush your hair, and otherwise remove any traces that could lead to offhand remarks or questions. And be careful talking about it in any detail, you don't know when someone will come through the door and overhear something."

This was horrible! She was going to such lengths to keep his secret safe...she must have a dire use for keeping it to herself. Oh no..._OPEN-ENDED BLACKMAIL_. She'd probably make him sweep the floor, or wash the doors, or clean her room, or...clean _his_ room! He didn't want to clean his room! How could she _do_ that to him?!?! Or...maybe she was just being really nice?

His brain left a message, saying it had been overworked already and would be running on "average" for the foreseeable future. Since that precluded fathoming Raven, and since what she said made some sort of sense, he decided to go along with it for the time being...but to also retain his doubts. "Alright," he said as he made his way out the door.

"_Girls can be so _crazy_,_" he thought.


	5. On the Road Again

"Dude, why is Control Freak hiding out in the _desert?_" came Beast Boy's voice from Raven's right.

"It is most curious," came Starfire's voice from Raven's left. "Is he not pale? Does he not fear the burn of the sun?"

Raven shook her head slightly, though not because of their questions. Beast Boy _had _recovered from the effects of his panic, which certainly made the trip in the T-Car more tolerable. But not as tolerable as if he'd recovered _before_ Raven was compelled to sit in the middle seat, between him and Starfire. Normally she'd be staring out a side window right now, mentally relaxing at the sight of the landscape floating by. It wasn't relaxing at all with vivid red or green hair bobbing in the way. She was beginning to debate whether the trouble she'd been putting herself through was worth it.

"Maybe he knows fewer people will look for him out here," Cyborg suggested. "Maybe he got a good deal on an Internet connection. Maybe he's building the world's largest glass oven, I don't know!" Cyborg's increasing exasperation was a telltale sign that he'd independently considered the question, and was still at a loss for a reliable answer. "All I know is that that company established their stuff's location to be within a few miles of a point out this way, and we're going there because that's the only lead we've got."

Knowing that no one else would answer Starfire's question, Raven did so: "And Control Freak won't stay outdoors long enough to get a sunburn. What _I_ want to know, is why they couldn't _pinpoint _those transponders, and why we have to settle for several square miles of possibility instead."

"_That_ I can tell ya," Cyborg replied. "The transponder signal only appeared for an extremely short amount of time, short enough that it actually slipped between the cycles of the directional receivers. Must've been a tiny chink in whatever signal shielding Control Freak's got. All they had to go on was the signal intensity from the omnidirectional receivers. But because none of the sites were near the source of the signal, each reading allowed for a huge area; the most reliable reading they had allowed for anywhere from 200 to 250 miles away from the site. Between _all_ the readings, though, they narrowed it down to this one patch of desert."

"Super."

"Fifty miles doesn't sound like a lot," Beast Boy commented.

"But that is without the direction," Starfire replied. "That means over 70,000 square miles would be possible, given that we could not know the terrain from the reading."

Beast Boy's eyes widened, and he leaned forward in his seat in order to stare at Starfire in surprise, Raven having been in the way in the normal seated position. "Dude, how could you know that?"

"Two hundred fifty squared times pi, minus two hundred squared times pi. ...Pi _is_ the word for the ratio of the..._circumference_ of the circle to its diameter, is it not?"

"It is," Robin answered from the front.

"I thought it meant...a pie," Beast Boy commented.

"We don't talk about the pastry," Cyborg reminded him as Beast Boy slowly sank back into his seat. Raven suspected he was trying to figure out how Starfire could remember what "circumference" meant but had to ask about "pi". But on second thought, she realized it was more likely that he was trying to remember _himself_ what "circumference" meant. Assuming, of course, that he ever knew in the first place.

"'Circumference' is the distance along the edge of a circle, Beast Boy," Raven stated, whether for his information or for her own amusement. Perhaps both.

"I _totally_ knew that...it had something to do with a circle." Rather then admit that his ploy to cover his ignorance had failed, Beast Boy opted to change the subject. "So what kind of cool stuff did you guys get?"

"Yes," came an enthused voice from Starfire. "Did you get the sonic dampers and the ablative plastic?"

"Uh...yeah, actually," answered Cyborg. "But we never got to getting them unpacked. How did you know about 'em?"

"...the lucky guess?" Raven saw Starfire fidgeting with her fingers, and making a forced smile. It wouldn't take an empath to know that she was hiding something. It would, however, seem to take some attention; and neither Cyborg, nor Robin, nor Beast Boy, were looking at Starfire, so all three missed the visual cues. Raven, for her part, thought it unwise to address the matter now; most likely Starfire simply looked through the packages, and that kind of thing should wait until after Control Freak and Adonis were behind bars.

"Hmm." Cyborg didn't sound convinced, but he continued nonetheless. "Well, got some sonic funnels."

"And some ultra-light alloys," Robin added.

_"And_ some phase modulators," Cyborg contributed, not intending to let Robin have the last word.

"_And_ some energy storage prisms!" Robin wasn't in the mood to let _Cyborg_ have the last word.

"_And_ dual-state inducers!"

"_And_ aero-compensators!"

Raven shook her head at the needless competition. "And a partridge in a pear tree, we got it. Have either of you actually _done_ anything, besides try to outdo the other?"

"_I _built high stability explosive discs," Robin attempted to justify. "Reliable up to two hundred feet in a tornado."

"And _I_ installed a 360-degree-arc double-mode sonic cannon turret on the T-Car," countered Cyborg. "Any bad guy in any direction on the ground better have some earplugs!"

Raven sighed in disgust. "Robin, how often do we fight in a tornado? How often do we _see_ a tornado? And Cyborg, didn't that proton cannon have a full-circle arc too?"

At this, both of their egos were deflated, and they attempted to justify their excitement. With little success.

"Well...it was windy a lot in Gotham City, and I..." Robin's voice trailed off.

"And...I never got to use the proton cannon because the car blew up..." was the best Cyborg could do.

Meanwhile, Beast Boy was laughing at his fortune of not being on the receiving end of Raven's glare for once. Then he saw her glaring at him, and decided it was time to shut up.

Raven's voice was firm, but not harsh, as she addressed Cyborg and Robin. "OK, you got to build cool toys. I can appreciate that. But can you _please_ stop the inane one-up-manship? It's a little _too_ excessive."

"So says the Queen of No Pants, " Cyborg muttered under his breath. Or so he may have thought; he underestimated Beast Boy's hearing. And Raven's.

Raven growled and struggled to keep her anger contained, partly because she was sure he wouldn't have said that if he knew it'd really bother her, and partly because blowing up the T-Car or any of its occupants would be counterproductive.

To everyone's surprise, particularly Raven's, it was Beast Boy who defused the situation. "Dude, that wasn't funny," he reprimanded. "And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it."

The look on Cyborg's face, even just from the reflection in the rear view mirror, was priceless. Raven hadn't seen a look like that since that candy tried to eat Cyborg during the team's first encounter with Control Freak. She had to quickly put her hand over her mouth, to keep the smile from showing or the laugh from escaping.

Robin had other things on his mind. "Guys, we have company," he said, pointing ahead of the T-Car. Raven looked in that direction, and saw a cliff to their left, a sea of sand on their right, a road straight ahead...and a quickly approaching blur on the horizon. A shiny, black blur.

"Dude, we found Control Freak already?" asked Beast Boy.

"No, " stated Robin, in his no-nonsense voice. "He found _us_."

* * *

Cyborg accelerated the T-Car, while also hitting the button to deploy the recently-touted sonic turret. "'Bout forty seconds before the fireworks start, with the current speeds," he announced.

"What's your plan?" Robin inquired.

"Keep the turret tracking the top-center of his windshield. When he gets in range, we pound it, and the top behind it. Between the window damage and the convertible conversion, he'll be forced to slow enough that we can take him down from the air, if it doesn't stop him outright."

"Are you sure this will work?"

"This is _Control Freak_ we're talking about. Who knows _what_ will work? If you have a better idea, I'm all ears, but we're on a tight schedule. Twenty-seven seconds 'til range."

Robin spent only a second mentally formulating alternatives, none of which were better then Cyborg's. "Alright. Starfire, Raven: Get ready to follow that van. Beast Boy, Cyborg: We'll be ready for Adonis to show up."

Robin was prepared for Raven to make a comment about her and Starfire doing the "real" work themselves, and had his explanation that they were the only ones who could simultaneously keep up with and affect the van even at a reduced speed. No such comment was made, however. Raven almost seemed relieved at the prospect.

Robin quickly put his mind to the task. Looking ahead, he saw Control Freak's van, now close enough to make out its box-like shape. He also saw the end of the cliff on their left, where it turned away from the road they were on. No sign of Adonis' red car suit, nor of anything else of significance.

The view outside the passenger window, to Robin's right, was dominated by a large field of sand, with a series of mountains breaking into the skyline. While the sand was interrupted in points by rocks, shrubs and cacti; such points were sparse enough that stealthily moving between cover would be extraordinarily difficult for a man-sized target, and Adonis' suit was certainly larger than that.

Robin looked out past the left of the T-Car, largely for the sake of being thorough, and saw precisely what he'd expect: A wall of rock blurring by as a result of the car's velocity. Robin stared at it for a couple seconds to be sure. He was mentally aware that focusing his gaze in defiance was a futile gesture against the inanimate cliff face, but he was also aware that maintaining a consistent holographic projection at these speeds was excruciatingly difficult. His own inability to detect minute breaks in the pattern of rock screaming by was the best assurance about the real nature of the cliff as he could personally muster, and that would have to be enough for him.

Turning to look behind his seat, Robin saw that the view behind him was dominated by...Raven. "It looks like it did when it was in front of us," she said, anticipating his next step. "And if Adonis can run faster than Cyborg's driving, we have a serious problem." The view out the window, to either side of Raven's head, corroborated her statement. With the exception of Starfire's smiling face, looking behind the car was a mirror image of looking in front of the car; though with no reference points near the side of the road there would be no real way to determine discrepancies anyway.

Then came Cyborg's voice from the driver's seat. "Almost there...come here you overgr—WHOA!" Robin's attention was instantly drawn towards the front of the car, where he saw the van speeding forward significantly faster then before, and judging by Cyborg's panicked button mashing the sudden acceleration had thrown off his targeting procedure. The van deployed a thick yellow smoke trail, and before Cyborg could get a target lock again the van screamed past the T-Car, the smoke leaving it with zero visibility.

Cyborg gripped the steering wheel, and Robin felt the slow deceleration of the car. They knew the drill: At their speed, running off the road or colliding with an obstacle would be disastrous to the T-Car and its occupants, and the same speed would also hamper maneuverability if an obstacle lay on the other side of the smoke. At the same time, hard braking could cause Cyborg to lose control of the T-Car, pretty much guaranteeing the disaster of running off the road. So Cyborg was slowing moderately, and hoping for the best. Robin would do the same, if he were driving a car in which he wasn't the sole occupant.

After three seconds that felt closer to three minutes, the T-Car emerged out of the smoke. Still intact, still on the road, and with no obstacles in sight. The cliff was no longer in sight either; they must have passed it while in the smoke. The Titans breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then Cyborg saw something in the rear view mirror.

"What the—How does that _freak_ make a van _move_ like that?! AND DOESN'T HE KNOW WHAT THE DOUBLE YELLOW LINE MEANS?" Robin had to see this for himself...and sure enough, out the rear window he saw Control Freak's van. Which had somehow in the course of the past several seconds stopped, turned to face the other way, and was presently approaching the T-Car in the adjacent lane. But suddenly, Robin had a question of his own.

"Why is this a no-passing zone?"

As the van overtook the T-Car, it laid a line of oil slick behind it. This time, Cyborg couldn't control the T-Car as it veered off the road to the left. Robin got his answer as the car crashed through the low railing separating the road from the side of the hill they were at the top of. The hill that the T-Car was now running down the side of.

Cyborg's organic eye was wide with terror as he tried to brake, to no avail. Gravity had taken over as the primary contributor to the car's speed. Fortunately there were no rocks jutting from the hillside, as Cyborg gripped the steering wheel once more, this time trying to keep the car pointed downwards least it tumble on its way to the bottom. Unfortunately, his stabilizing effort failed, and the T-Car was rolling over in midair as it flew over a four-hundred-foot drop in the side of the hill.

Beast Boy yelled.

Starfire screamed.

Cyborg emitted that oddly high-pitched squeal of his, which would be entertaining in almost any other circumstance.

Robin tried to think of a plan. Any plan. And got nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat.

As for the last passenger...."Azarath Metrion _Zinthos_!" Raven's mantra was more rushed then usual...but it did the job. Dark energy enveloped the T-Car, and as it slowed the car's vertical descent the tumbling reduced, subsided, then corrected. All told, the T-Car was in a prime condition to simply glide the rest of the way to the bottom, hovering a couple feet over the surface.

Or it would have been, had there not been an irregular rock straight in their path, dwarfing the T-Car's size. Robin saw it looming out the now-stable left side of the car about the same time Raven did. She said "no time," the apprehension apparent in her voice. As he saw her push Starfire's back down with her arms, and release the T-Car to project a shield with her hands, Robin knew there was only one thing to say.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!"


	6. OFF the Road Again

Starfire moaned, and put a hand to her forehead. That had been one rough fall, and an even rougher stop. Particularly since Raven had, for whatever reason, pushed her back forward so far, it was level with her lap. She could still feel Raven's arms laying on her back, though they were now limp, along with her head and torso. She could hear Raven breathing, and it didn't seem particularly labored.

Starfire glanced to her right. The force of the collision had shattered the windows on the other side of the car, but the rest of that side appeared tolerably intact. It did appear she was the only conscious Titan, though: Raven was indeed laying on top of her, Beast Boy was sprawled in the corner, and even with the intervening seats Robin or Cyborg would be barking commands or laments if they were conscious.

She gently moved Raven off of her back, and then slowly straightened her posture so as to return her to a less strenuous seating position.

"Eep!"

Or such was the plan. Her shoulder blades were now pressing against some hard surface. She turned her head to look at the obstruction, and gasped in shock. A large, jutting piece of rock had punctured her window, and penetrated several feet into the T-Car. Completely occupying where her head and upper torso would've been, if Raven hadn't pushed her out of the way.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, the connector to the shoulder strap having been severed anyway. She more or less crawled out from under the rock, and as she laid Raven back against the intact seat cushion she instinctively gave her a light hug.

Starfire took a deep breath, and made a concerted effort to quell her apprehension and appraise the state of the T-Car; knowing that if any action needed to be taken, it was clearly up to her. Most noticeable was that _none_ of the windows had survived. Window fragments were concentrated near the original location of their windows. What remained of her door was fairly distorted, in contrast to the thorough mangling of the rest of that side of the car. Nothing that smelled flammable was evident in the air, so there was no need to worry about spontaneous explosions.

Raven's stirring ended any further examination.

"Ugh. Starfire?" came her meager voice.

Starfire squealed with delight, and made another concerted effort not to give Raven a crushing hug, lest she injure or agitate her. She couldn't fathom how Robin managed to restrain his emotions so well on a regular basis. "Raven! It is so joyous to see you unharmed."

"Not _quite_ unharmed, but nothing I can't take care of," Raven responded. "I take it _you're_ fine?"

"I am undamaged!" Starfire practically beamed.

"I'm glad." Raven glanced over at the intrusive rock. "_That_ could've been very bad."

"Wait! What about Cyborg? And Beast Boy? And Robin?"

"They're all _somewhat _aware," Raven said with a bemused grin, "I can feel them now. Beast Boy finally showed some sense and stayed in his seat, instead of turning into a turtle or something at the last second; which is why he's in the corner instead of splattered on the rock and hill. Cyborg, well, we won't really know how he is until he's able to tell us. And Robin, knowing him he'll probably—"

A slight moan emitted from the leader in question.

"—go on like nothing happened," Raven concluded.

Robin quickly came to his senses, and confirmed her hypothesis. "Titans, report!"

"I am undamaged," Starfire responded.

"No injuries worth reporting," Raven stated.

"Our system has been shocked!" came a somewhat slurred statement from Cyborg.

"But remember to salt the fries," Beast Boy muttered with a drawl, obviously not coherent.

Raven glanced at each of the three boys in turn. "They're doing better than I thought," She commented to Starfire.

"Are _you_ injured?" Starfire questioned Robin.

"I'm fine. Any sightings of Control Freak or Adonis?"

"I have not seen them," Starfire replied.

"I know Control Freak's out there _somewhere_," Raven added. "So we need to move, there's no telling when he and Adonis are going to show up."

"No," Robin countered. "We have to stop them," he said while doing his trademark fist-pounding routine.

Raven glanced at Cyborg and Beast Boy, both of whom had relapsed into their nearly unconscious state. "Just the _three_ of us?"

"I do not believe we excel at kicking the butt to such a degree," Starfire commented.

"Hmm." Robin mulled that over for a second. "Even so, it's better to face them here. If they catch us while we're on the move, we'll be worse off."

"But...it is not safe here," Starfire said.

"She's right," Raven affirmed. "_This _isn't a defensible position. This is a mass of metal, exposed to air, mangled on a rock that could trigger explosives even if they miss, on sloped terrain that prevents effective foot maneuvering. If Control Freak has explosives, we're done for. And if Beast Boy was actually conscious, he'd tell you that any vehicle with both a smoke trail and an oil slick would have a missile launcher to round out the set."

The mask made it difficult to tell if Robin had a blank stare on his face, but he did seem to have one. He recovered soon enough. "We need to move," he admitted with a sigh. "Recommendations?"

"I believe I can carry the car," Starfire offered, "although I am uncertain I could safely remove it from the rock."

"The removal I can handle," Raven said. "I'm thinking we take the car, or what remains of it, down the hill, find somewhere unobtrusive to hide out, and hope Control Freak doesn't find us."

"OK. And then what?" Robin asked.

"First thing would be to get everyone back in shape. I bet there's something physiological interfering with that tactical mind of yours, Beast Boy doesn't handle injury well in general, I'm hoping Cyborg doesn't have any _mechanical_ trauma, and I'll worry about my own condition on the way down. Oh, and best be sure Starfire is as pristine as she feels." Raven paused long enough to ensure that Starfire's giggling didn't herald a contribution to the planning. "See what our options are at that point."

"Alright," Robin agreed. "Let's do it."

* * *

The T-Car turned out to be more unwieldy than Starfire had anticipated, particularly with the missing section of the car and Cyborg's mass offsetting the center of gravity; but with Raven's assistance in maintaining its balance the trip was smooth enough. Ultimately, the car was deposited amidst a cluster of standing rocks Robin had spotted a short distance away from the bottom of the hill. It still wasn't an ideal location, but the arrangement would make the team more difficult to spot, and the level ground would make escape more feasible for the land-based Titans. The only other visible cover was a building of some sort on the horizon, too far away to be worth the risk of detection.

Beast Boy's first sight after regaining consciousness was Starfire flying ecstatically towards him. After hearing her gush her profound joy that he was finally responsive, and fending off a relapse of his prior panic from how tightly Starfire was embracing him; he realized he was still in the T-Car, or something that resembled it. In every visible direction he saw rocks sticking out of the ground, blocky and about six times the height of the car itself. They certainly didn't seem to be on the hillside.

"Uh...did we really fall all the way down to the bottom?" he asked.

"No," Raven answered simply, from outside what remained of the adjacent door. "Starfire, you can let go of him now."

"So...how'd we get here?" he asked, as Starfire complied and flew out through a huge hole in the ceiling.

"Starfire lugged the mass of tortured metal that used to be a car down here."

"Whoa." Suddenly, he was aware of a pain originating in his forehead. "Ugh, why do I have a headache?" he asked, putting his palm to the apparent source.

"That's what's left of your concussion," she replied. "You'll be fine soon enough."

"Oh." The implication slowly came to him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"How're you? And how's everyone else?"

"Robin had a very mild concussion, it's gone now; Starfire didn't have any real injuries in the first place, and Cyborg—"

Her list was interrupted by an outcry from the Titan in question. "_MY BABY_! _Look _what they _did _to my _baby_," he yelled, clearly in tears.

"—is vastly improved," Raven commented with a measure of bemusement. "As for me, I'm fine. Worst injury I had was a bruise on my hip, from what I have to guess was your head impacting it during the crash. Those seat belts weren't designed for side coll—_I said I was fine_."

He caught himself staring at her hips, his gaze alternating back and forth looking for darkened tissue. He immediately returned his gaze to her face. "Sorry," he meekly responded, blushing. Between her and Starfire he had certainly been a creep today, or at least that's how he felt.

"If you feel up to it," she said simply, "get out here. We haven't seen Adonis or Control Freak yet, and after Cyborg's little outburst there's little chance they won't find us. We could use some early warning."

He took the absence of a remark as a sign of forgiveness. Uncertain how else to display his appreciation, he opted for the best display of respect he could muster: He stood up in the car, turned to face Raven, and saluted. "Yes, sir, ma'am, sir!" he said as he turned into a vulture and flew out the same exit Starfire had taken. He was certain he had _heard_ her roll her eyes, because while he couldn't have _seen _it he somehow _knew _that she had.

As he started to gain altitude, he wondered if a vulture was really the best choice for a scout. It turned out not to matter, though: As soon as he cleared the top of the rocks, he spotted that unnaturally shiny black van approaching their location from around the side of the hill, leaving a trail of sand in the air. He guessed they'd arrive in a minute or so.

He shifted into a flying squirrel to make his descent, and alighted on the opposite side of the car. Starfire was consoling Cyborg, while Robin looked impatient. "They're coming," Beast Boy said, pointing in the direction of their arrival.

"How long?" Robin practically demanded, as the others gathered around.

"I guess a minute."

The vengeance in Cyborg's voice was apparent as he switched his arm into sonic cannon mode: "That's one minute before they get their butts—" He was interrupted by the sound of the cannon losing power and winding down. "Aww man...."

Robin's head sank an inch. "Please tell me you can fix that."

Cyborg examined a display on his arm panel, then shook his head. "Not in time," he said despondently.

"Great," was Robin's sarcastic reply.


	7. Paired Propositions

Raven could make out the sound of Control Freak's engine approaching. Not a good sign. While this situation was a great deal _better_ then being restrained by a rock on the side of a hill, it was by no means a _good_ situation.

Beast Boy was dispensing his particular brand of tactical advice. "OK, so Cyborg's cannon is on the blink. It's still just Adonis and Control Freak, can't we just kick their butts again?"

"It took all of us, sonic cannon included, to tackle Adonis the last time," Cyborg reminded him. "And that was _without_ Control Freak backing him up the whole time."

"We're going to fight them anyway," Robin commanded. "We can't hide, and we can't run."

"Uh, Raven," Cyborg said, "don't take this the wrong way, but are you _sure_ that spiky head of his is working?"

Raven chose to interpret that as a request for a second opinion on Robin's plan. She considered their strategic options once more, but even knowing what direction the attack was coming from didn't change the outcome: "We can't outrun them. I can't teleport us far enough away to get to safety. And I'm not inclined to wait for bombardment to commence."

"Yeah," Beast Boy agreed, "With that missile launcher he could, like, nuke us from orbit. Unless we take him down first."

Cyborg directed an annoyed look at the changeling. "Maybe I missed something, but _what missile launcher?_"

Beast Boy managed to be sound even _more _incredulous. "He-_lloooooooo_? He's got a smoke trail and an oil slick, what kind of villain wouldn't have the missile launcher to complete the set?"

Robin and Starfire glanced at Raven with some small measure of surprise. Raven just shook her head for a second. Just because she was _right_, didn't mean she enjoyed predicting Beast Boy's statement. "And Control Freak is certainly the type to be concerned with stereotypical villainy," she said. "And at least _we're_ capable of evading fire. How much more punishment do you think the T-Car can take?" she added.

All Cyborg could do was give Raven a blank stare. "I can't believe _you_, of _all_ people, are siding with _Beast Boy _on this."

"Tell me about it. But he's right; they could park at a standoff distance and toss explosives at their leisure. Unless someone has some functioning long-range weaponry?"

Cyborg shook his head slowly. "Fine."

"We shall kick the butt," Starfire concurred.

Raven became aware that the sound of the van's engine, which had been growing steadily louder, had abruptly ceased. A few seconds later, the reason was apparent.

"I KNOW YOU'RE THERE, TITANS," came Control Freak's voice over what she assumed was a megaphone of some sort. "COME OUT AND FACE US!"

"I think 'ambush' is out of the question," Raven commented.

"They've got us right where they want us," Robin added.

A shiver went down Raven's spine. "Please don't say that." The thought of being where Adonis wanted her was simply not a healthy thing to be considering. Pushing the thought out of her mind, she added a suggestion: "Let's go out there, see what Control Freak wants, and then _interrupt _the inevitable boast. At the very least we might shut him up."

"I'm up for _that_," Cyborg agreed.

"Alright," said Robin. "We're going to go out there casually, and when I give the word we're going to strike."

Raven took in the various statements of assent going on around her, and Robin did the same. While this plan didn't strike her as particularly inspired, it _was _less suicidal then a simple charge. Rather nice of Control Freak's ego to work to their advantage. With any luck, Control Freak would go down before he could put up much of a fight, making Adonis that much easier to subdue.

They walked out in what was more-or-less formation: Beast Boy and Cyborg in front, followed by Robin, Starfire and herself in the back; with Robin the middle. The arrangement was certainly sensible: Cyborg, and Beast Boy's larger animal forms, were the most resilient of the team; and with his sonic cannon out Cyborg needed to be closer to the action than usual. Meanwhile Robin, Starfire and herself were more agile and had effective ranged attacks to rely on, and so weren't inconvenienced by a back-row position.

The patch of rocks was hardly expansive, they only had to walk past five miniature spires before the desert was wide open in front of them. Except for the profile of that infernal van. Or that mechanical suit of Adonis', which was now the same shiny black as the van. Raven wasn't even marginally impressed by the new look.

Beast Boy, however, was enthralled. "Ooh, _cool_...."

Raven exhaled softly. Since she happened to be on the same side of the formation as Beast Boy, she took the opportunity to backhand the side of his head. Despite various rumors to the contrary, she didn't enjoy smacking him around, not when he didn't deserve it anyway. Unfortunately, waiting for him to snap out of his reveries on his own was, historically, too time-consuming to be remotely practical in a combat situation.

"OW! What'd you do _that_ for?!?!"

Cyborg provided the response. "Stay on target," he insisted.

"Dude, I _was_ on target!" he snapped back. Then he turned his head to look at Raven. "And _you_ should loosen up."

She gave him an emotionless stare, slowly raised a fist...then purposefully extended her index finger. Beast Boy turned his head, following the implied line...straight to Adonis. He gave a startled yell.

"You Titans didn't honestly think you could escape _me_, did you?" Control Freak smugly asked out the driver's side window.

"Not really, no," Raven deadpanned.

"Oh." He was visibly deflated at the lackadaisical response.

Raven wasn't devoting a lot of focus to his words, anyway. She was being puzzled at his emotional state. He seemed...relieved. Such a contrast to the panic that had allowed her to sense his general presence when she woke up on the hillside.

It took a few seconds, but Control Freak did manage to rebuild his composure. "Well, it's about time that you recognized the inevitable: I, Control Freak, have played the major role in the defeat of the Teen Titans!" And he broke into maniacal laughter.

Which was Robin's cue. "Titans, go!"

Without hesitation, Raven launched into the air and flung some dark energy bolts at the momentarily dumbstruck Control Freak. The window was as unnaturally fast in operation as the van itself was, and the door was sealed and deflected the energy without any visible damage. Some sort of electric discharge across the van's surface cut Beast Boy's T-Rex charge short, as well.

Meanwhile, the other Titans were closer to Adonis and targeted him instead. Cyborg ran in and laid out a series of swings, followed by Robin making a flying staff swipe, concluded by Starfire opting for a simple diving jab. To their surprise, a smiling Adonis reacted with a wide sweep of his arm. Robin and Cyborg were thrown back to where Raven and Beast Boy were; Starfire had braced for the blow and while the swing forced her down on one knee, she managed to hold her ground, before pushing off the ground under her and throwing Adonis off balance with his own arm.

Beast Boy, back in human form, made a comment. "Dudes, listen." Sure enough, there was a distinctive whirring sound with each movement of Adonis' limbs. "I know that sound, and Adonis did _not_ sound like an AT-ST before." Raven was just familiar enough with Star Wars to recognize that as the term for the bipedal combat vehicles.

Starfire let out a small squeal as Adonis managed to land a punch that pushed her back towards the others. "That's right, weaklings," he taunted, "Adonis has upgraded! Again."

"I think we found the servos," Robin said softly.

"I think he really _was_ on target," Cyborg offered in kind.

A crazed look hit Beast Boy's face. "Wait, if he's an AT-ST, then all we need is—"

"We're a little short on Ewoks and logs," Cyborg interrupted.

Adonis wasn't going to give them time to discuss it further, he charged towards them, prompting the Titans to scatter.

"No pain, no gain!" he reminded them. Or ridiculed them. Perhaps both, Raven couldn't really tell.

She lashed out with dark energy ribbons, like she had in their earlier encounter, but this time it failed to leave any mark. He didn't get a chance to grab at her this time either though; partly because she'd flown out of reach and partly because Cyborg had landed a two-fisted swing on his leg. While Adonis _was_ delayed for a second, he quickly kicked Cyborg off to the side with that same leg. Once Cyborg was clear, Starfire and Robin started bombarding him with starbolts and concussive discs. Neither of which seemed to bother him, as he went after Beast Boy, who hadn't yet seen an opening.

From her vantage point, Raven looked around for something. Anything. This particular piece of desert was low on objects suitable for telekinesis, unfortunately. Raven tried to grasp one of the standing stones with her powers and pull it out of the ground, but it was attached to the bedrock and too solid to remove.

Starfire, having ceased her onslaught to avoid hitting Beast Boy, saw Raven's power enveloping one of the stones. Realizing what the stone's continuing stationary status meant, she executed a flying charge towards the base of the stone. With a yell, and with hands and eyes blazing emerald, she struck the corner of the rock, creating a deep crack through it. With the weakness in its structure, Raven was able to snap the top away from the base.

Raven would've thanked Starfire for the assist, but Starfire was already sailing back into the fray and Raven had other things on her mind. She'd need additional focus to move an object of that weight, so she landed on the ground. "Azarath Metrion—"

She realized a little too late what the sound of a door handle meant, as Control Freak forcefully opened the van's driver-side door. Not realizing she'd landed in the door's opening arc, she was unprepared for the door slamming into her back, throwing her to the ground with a grunt of pain. Outmuscled by _Control Freak_, that was painful _and_ embarrassing.

She was about to stand up, when she saw Adonis approaching with too eager a smile on his face. She opted to phase into the sand instead. She still heard his comment, though: "Babe, playing hard-to-get was cute the first couple times, but it's getting old." Being incorporeal didn't stop the shiver from manifesting in her spine.

When she emerged in a somewhat safer spot, she discovered, to her dismay, that Control Freak had called forth some of his television abominations as backup, and the Titans were overwhelmed.

"Fall back!" Robin commanded as he tossed a smoke bomb. A gesture Raven thought was futile, since there was only one place they could fall back _to_.

The team made their way quickly back to where the T-Car was, if only because their larger foes would be at a greater disadvantage in the not-as-clear rocky area. But as Raven had expected, this wasn't enough to halt Adonis, and Control Freak was brave enough to follow on foot.

As Adonis slowly approached with that creepy look of anticipation on his face, the Titans gathered behind the relative safety of the car's frame.

"I don't know how to tell you this," Cyborg said, "But the T-Car isn't in any shape to offer protection."

"_See?_" Beast Boy said in a vindicated tone. "If you'd added the whoosh-whoosh—"

Cyborg wasn't in the mood. "I TOLD YOU, THIS CAR IS A NO-HASSELHOFF ZONE!"

"_**WHAT?!?!?!**_" came a vehement cry from Control Freak. "Oh _that_ is _it!_" he growled, and brandished his remote.

Before the Titans could move, he pushed a button and encased them all in a blue forcefield bubble. With a second button press, waves of white lightning danced over the frame of the car for several seconds, during which the Titans all tried to fracture the forcefield to no avail.

When the glow finally cleared, the T-Car had been transformed into the style of that black car he'd stolen from the parking lot when they found him the other day. Raven could also hear a pair of odd electronic sounds, which she guessed _could_ be considered a "whoosh-whoosh". The car remained the T-Car in general structural condition. Including a massive gap where the rock had punctured it, although that detail might not be apparent from where Control Freak was standing.

"Dude...." came Beast Boy's voice, enthralled once more.

"Don't make me slap you again," Raven threatened.

"Don't worry," he absentmindedly responded, "The blue glow is too distracting on the distraction."

"I do agree that it is a most accurate replica," Starfire added, "though I wish the situation of the viewing was more benevolent."

Control Freak, meanwhile, had adopted that quasi-dignified expression once more. "If you don't respect the classics, the classics won't respect _you_."

"I agree, Michael," came an oddly digitized, and English-accent-bearing, voice from the T-Car.

"This is not right!" Starfire bitterly protested. "You are a bad man!"

Control Freak looked at her, somewhat incredulously. "Yeah? And?"

Starfire took a breath, and tried to elaborate. "You are a _bad_ man! You are not the Michael, you are the _Garthe_!"

Control Freak looked dumbstruck for a second. "Oh. OK," he said as he pointed the remote towards himself and pressed the button. Suddenly, he gained a mustache and a tiny patch of hair immediately below his lip. "Better?"

Starfire shot him a quizzical look. "I am...uncertain," she admitted.

"Yeah," Beast Boy agreed, "It looks kinda cool...but kinda uncomfortable."

"I'm sure the itching will stop eventually," Control Freak responded, as he walked to the back of the T-Car. "Open the trunk, Feeny," he commanded of the car.

Raven flinched as anxiety flared out of Starfire like a nova. She glanced at the Tamaranean princess, looking for some sign to explain the disproportionate response, but other than having her hand over her mouth in apprehension there was no sign to be gleaned. She looked farther back to Cyborg, in case he had some idea what was in the trunk; but he didn't seem to have anything specific in mind, as he was fuming in general over being trapped, and grumbling about "that slimy weasel laying his filthy hands on my baby".

Raven wasn't sure Control Freak even knew what he was looking for, but judging from the grin that emerged on his face he must've found _something_. He tugged on...something, struggling to get it out of the trunk. "It's...pretty...heavy," he gasped between tugs. Finally he managed to free the object from its container, the force of extraction causing him to topple over.

The object was revealed: A tall suitcase, in the solid purple that pervaded most of Starfire's possessions. Starfire's anxiety kicked up another notch. In a rather unsettling display, Control Freak then sniffed the suitcase, and followed with some gleeful fanboy monologue: "It even _smells_ like her! This'll go _great_ in the shrine...."

"Please, do not take my suitcase!" Starfire pleaded. "It has...the hygiene products!"

Raven turned her head sharply towards Starfire, with one eyebrow furled and the other raised. Meanwhile nine masculine eyes popped out of their sockets, their owners paralyzed with shock. Not only did the statement not match her anxiety, but Raven was fairly certain Starfire would never mention "hygiene products" around Robin. Starfire was indeed blushing profusely, but also fidgeting with her fingers again.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Control Freak managed to respond. "What," he said with half-muttering denial.

"Please," Starfire forced herself to continue, "it is most..._warm_ here, and I do not like to sweat. It is...the gross."

The empathic cacophony dropped a degree. Obviously that wasn't the _type_ of hygiene products everyone had in mind. Raven still took the opportunity to adjust her cloak, arranging it to cover her body from the neck down. Seemed prudent, given Adonis' unhealthy fascination.

Control Freak shuddered a bit. "Ugh, I know what you mean," he agreed. "I guess I can relinquish...." He stopped midsentence, then forced himself to set a skeptical eye. "Wait. You fly through _space_. And the sun, filtered through the atmosphere, affects you?"

"It is not the radiation," Starfire managed to explain, "but the ambient temperature."

Raven had concluded that whatever Starfire was hiding in that suitcase, it must have been extremely important for her to go to such lengths to conceal it. "Besides," Raven remarked, "do you _really_ want to take a suitcase full of an alien _girl's_ hygiene products?"

As she expected, insinuating a gender-specific nature to the purported hygiene products raised the level of anxiety back up to its prior state. With the exception of Starfire, who was feeling relieved and slightly secure, presumably because she no longer had to maintain this charade unassisted.

Control Freak tried to swallow the dryness that had taken over his throat. "Uhh, good point," he said, not quite suppressing the tinge of embarrassment. Then, he started to looking for the zipper, or whatever opening mechanism the suitcase might have had. "But just to be _sure—_"

"You really _do _want to rifle through her things like a pervert," Raven sarcastically stated, the quick response mitigating the spike in Starfire's apprehension.

"But—"

"_While_ she's watching you," she added, cutting him off.

He stammered for several seconds, cheeks flushed as he saw Starfire's agonized expression, before he managed to compose a sentence. "But it's so heavy!"

Raven made a show of her expression of incredulity. "It's _Starfire._" Such a response was certainly legitimate; Starfire had lifted the entire car, _including_ the suitcase, over her head. Extremely unlikely that its weight would inconvenience her at all.

"OK, fine, she can keep it," Control Freak relented. "I'll just have to find something _else_ for the shrine," he muttered, as Starfire giggled and clapped her hands at her good fortune.

"I am most grateful—" Starfire began.

"So what happens _now_?" Robin demanded of their captors, interrupting Starfire's gratitude.

Control Freak scratched his chin, with special attention to its newly-hair-bearing region, for a second. "First: Feeny, return to base," he instructed the car. He then walked a quarter of the way around the forcefield, hands behind his back, while delivering what might have passed for a villainous speech, in the classical villainous speech tone: "At this juncture, it is customary to offer the heroes the opportunity to beg for...." He paused for a split second. When he continued, it was with his normal voice. "Well there's little point in begging for your lives since I'm not going to kill you. So I guess you'd better beg for...something else."

"It's a little late for our dignity," Raven remarked.

"So you're ready to quit delaying our inevitable..._rendezvous_?" Adonis inquired suggestively, which triggered a maelstrom inside Raven's stomach. Or such was the sensation she had, at least.

Beast Boy was similarly repulsed. "Dude, you're gross." Not the most scathing remark in history, but Raven never expected anything of that sort from Beast Boy in the first place.

"Quiet, weakling," Adonis demanded. "She just needs the chance to love what Adonis has to offer." Raven was confident that she was experiencing real nausea this time. Worse, she couldn't project her powers through the forcefield to crush that mechanical suit and silence the disgusting waste of flesh. She tried to establish a grip once more, and again her powers failed to traverse the edges of the forcefield.

"We know he's not peddling _decency_," Cyborg remarked.

Adonis ignored him. "Still skeptical, babe? Well I _am_ hard to believe, so let's make a deal. I'll let your friends go, if you consent to a...candlelit affair." While Adonis paused for a second, Raven struggled to keep her vicious anger under control. She was well aware that any outburst of her powers capable of breaching the forcefield would have the devastating side effect of deep frying all her friends, a side effect possible even if she _didn't_ break the forcefield. "Well, more like an overnight hotel room then anything with candles, but I bet—"

Now even Control Freak was fed up. "Enough! You are _disgusting!_"

"Hey, _I_ wasn't the one sniffing a suitcase to see if it smelled like a girl," he countered.

Control Freak blinked. "Only because it wasn't Raven's." She was too surprised and confused to really be angry now. Did anything _ever_ make sense when Control Freak was involved?

"That's not the point."

"Then what _is_ the...." His voice trailed off, as he cast a glance towards the car, which had failed to move despite his prior command. "Feeny, I told you to go to the base."

"I...can't, Garthe," replied the car.

"And why not?"

"My alpha circuit appears to have been compromised."

Control Freak rolled his eyes and threw his arms up in the air, with a disgusted growl. "Of _all_ the devices in this thing, I get stuck with the _plot_ one."

Cyborg scratched the organic side of his forehead. "Uhh, not to interrupt, but....What does an alpha circuit actually _do_, anyway?"

"Depends on the writer," Control Freak responded. "Same as Raven's powers."

"_What?_" came Raven's perplexed outburst.

"Uhh, nevermind," he said with a quick shaking of his head. "No point keeping the car, then," he said with a sigh, and activated his remote. The car quickly resumed its prior, non-speaking, wrecked state. "Now...where were we?"

Hoping to avoid the prior train of conversation, Raven tried to steer the conversation away from it: "You were going to have us grovel or something, wasn't it?"

"Oh! Right, thanks. I think the _first_ step is a sincere statement of your derisive defeat at the hands of an exemplary enemy's superior skills."

Silence reigned for a couple seconds, before Beast Boy had a question.

"Wait. You mean...you think you trapped us because you're better than us?"

Control Freak responded: "Well..._yeah_. You _are_ trapped, and I recall us having _something_ to do with the process."

"It wasn't _you_, it was that oily stuff. It's only because we slipped off the road...and the hill...that you ever had a chance."

"Maybe you forgot, but the Freakout deployed that oil."

"The 'Freakout'?" Cyborg asked quizzically, having made out that the word was a proper noun.

"My hi-tech van," Control Freak answered proudly.

"What kind of a name is _that_?" Robin almost sneered.

"The themed kind," Control Freak responded. "And you don't have much room to talk about naming conventions yourself. You _prepend an 'R'_ and call it good. That's almost as bad as _Batmania_."

"Sure your van did that," Beast Boy said in an attempt not to lose his own chain of thought. "But _that's_ not skill. A _leaky car _could make a road slippery with oil. So your 'skill' is...being leaky? You really want to be known for _that_?"

Control Freak looked like he was about to object, before he settled on scratching his chin and pondering a bit. "You may have a point," he finally admitted.

"So, how about a _real_ contest of skill?"

Raven knew that Robin, Cyborg and Starfire would be staring at Beast Boy with expressions of disbelief, annoyance and curiosity; respectively. She would've seen them too, had she not been cradling her face with her hand.

"What do you have in mind?" Control Freak asked, although the question was certainly on _everyone's_ mind.

"I'm thinking...we build a tank thingy, then we see if our tank thingy is better then your tank thingies. Like the A-Team."

"You mean...you'll build an armored vehicle using unlikely components, and try to storm our base with it?"

Robin chose that moment in jump in. "Actually, I was thinking we'd set up an encounter in the open desert somewhere. More of a competition that way."

"I dunno...."

Cyborg shook his head, not quite able to believe he was participating in this, before questioning Control Freak's talent: "What's the matter? Need your pretty base defenses to take us on?"

"No. Hmm....Well it _does_ have a classic A-Team feel to it," Control Freak admitted. "But for the location," he was muttering in thought. "How about...right around here?"

Robin answered, "Near that building in the distance?" while pointing in its general direction.

"The abandoned airport? Works for me. Now, time frame. Can't be waiting forever, after all."

"Six hours," Robin suggested.

"How about...two?" Control Freak countered.

"Five."

"Three."

"Four."

"Sold!"

Raven shook her head in disgust. It pained her that this _mockery _of ritual combat was sincerely looking like a viable way to come out ahead in this situation. Even more painful was that she was _willing_ to go along with it, _because_ it was looking like a viable option. And the only way it could be worse—

"We're _not _just letting them go," Adonis insisted, as if on cue. "That's dumb. Now, if a certain chick would reconsider Adonis' offer—"

"You are _sick_," Control Freak reprimanded, before Raven's anger had much chance to swell.

"Like _you_ wouldn't take an opportunity to indulge in _your_ space-girl fetish?"

"Through ultimatum?! _No_!" Control Freak shouted. If Starfire had a reaction to the exchange, Raven couldn't tell what it was.

"What's the 'ultimate umm' have to do with anything?"

"That's....It's....You...GAH!" Control Freak finally exploded.

Raven heard Cyborg muttering. "Better look out B, Adonis is muscling in on your turf." Raven had been thinking the same thing, that Beast Boy wasn't the _only_ one who tried to use words without knowing what they meant.

"So," Beast Boy mused, "do you mean, like the wordy thing, or like Raven?"

Raven was sure he thought it was funny. _She _didn't. And Cyborg's organic eye revealed that he didn't think _she_ thought it was funny.

She shot an annoyed glare at Beast Boy. That was sufficient to draw his attention and cause him to take a step back. "I, I mean _bugging_ you!" he quickly added.

Having received an answer close enough to her satisfaction, she returned her attention to the minor quarrel outside the forcefield, much to Beast Boy's relief.

"OK, hold on," Control Freak said over the bickering that had been going on prior. "You like showing the Titans how much stronger you are, right?"

"Well yeah," Adonis agreed.

"And it's more fun for you if it's closer to fair, right?"

"Well yeah."

"And you're not going to lose this next time, are you?"

"No way."

"And we'll have them again after we win, right?"

"Well yeah."

"So do we need to waste time deciding what to do with them _now_?"

"No...hmm. OK, smart guy, let's have this little contest. It'll be _fun_...thought not as fun as—"

"We have _two _schedules to keep now," Control Freak interrupted, "so let's not waste any time. I've got some last minute details to take care of here, boring stuff. You may as well head back to the van...or the base, if you don't mind the trip."

Adonis stood there for a couple of seconds before he walked away, muttering something about how "the little nerd likes to arrange everything all perfect." Raven breathed a sigh of relief at his absence.

"Four hours," Robin reminded Control Freak.

"Huh? Oh yeah, let me check." He looked at his wrist, only to find it bare. Grumbling, he used his remote to summon a watch to the proper location. Then he looked at his wrist again. "It's 14:27....OK, three minutes on the house. At 6:30PM, time's up."

"Fine," Robin answered bluntly.

"Alright." Then Control Freak walked over to Raven, or more precisely the section of forcefield closest to her. "Can't wait to get back to the solo villain thing," he muttered. "Next time I need a partner, I'm running _background checks_."

Raven was quite aware that he was only pretending to be muttering to himself, and suspected this was a veiled attempt at an apology. Which would have been more effective if he wasn't responsible for the entire situation in the first place, to say nothing of trying to kill them all. So she made the most straightforward, forthright comment she could make; although it still sounded like her usual detached commentary: "If you want my gratitude, you'll let us go without this ridiculous competition."

Control Freak looked at her, contemplating the merits of the statement. He absentmindedly started to twirl his new mustache, or at least that was probably the intent. "Ow!" The mustache was close to his skin throughout, causing the twirl to pull on the far hair. "So _that's_ why the Fu Manchu is so popular."

Another flourish of the remote, and all the facial hair was gone. He sighed, then quickly shook his head as he realized he was supposed to be doing something else. "I really wish it was in the cards," he said of Raven's offer, "but it doesn't suit the situation. I'm looking forward to the showdown, I'd have to deal with Adonis; but most importantly, the two of us are parting ways tonight. Robin would never fold on such a hand."

Raven could almost _hear _the steam coming out of Robin's ears, but she knew Control Freak was right. Robin _would_ never give up an opportunity to catch two criminals, particularly not with one of them as difficult to locate as Control Freak. "Super."

"Any _other_ questions?" Control Freak inquired.

"Yes," Starfire replied. "Please, what is...the fetish?"

Control Freak stammered for a few seconds as a pair of emerald eyes looked to him for an answer. Eventually he just gave up. "Don't—Don't worry about it. Hasta la vista, Titans," he said, not quite managing to pull off the impression of confidence. Then he turned around, and walked away, with his shoulders slumped. As soon as he was out of sight, the forcefield dissipated.

"Tell me this isn't happening," Cyborg said over the sound of the van's departure.

"_What_ were you thinking?" Robin demanded of Beast Boy.

"_Were_ you thinking?" Cyborg added.

Beast Boy giggled sheepishly. "I was kinda thinking he'd go for the idea and let us go."

Robin and Cyborg were appalled to discover they couldn't truly refute the statement, not after it worked as intended.

Raven shook her head. "Any chance we could abandon this exercise and go home?" She sighed, already suspecting the answer.

"No," the predicted response was given by Robin. "The risk of detection is too great, and I don't want to leave Adonis free to roam around any more than I think you do."

Raven groaned in disgust. "Tell me this isn't happening," she mirrored Cyborg's remark. Repeatedly choosing a horrible option in lieu of an impossible one was seriously wearing her down.

Starfire chimed in. "I suggest we withhold our disbelief until the dilemma is past. We shall kick the butt, _then _we shall ask the questions."

"I vote for Starfire's plan," Beast Boy said.

Robin shook his head. "Fine," he said less than enthusiastically. "Beast Boy, check out that building, the one Control Freak said was an airport. Cyborg, see if anything in the T-Car is salvageable."

"Wait," Raven said. As all eyes turned to her, hers turned to Starfire. "What's _really_ in the suitcase?"

Starfire giggled nervously, and rubbed her arm. "The hygiene products?"

"_And?_" Raven prompted with some annoyance.

"...the plastics and dampers from the Tower."

Cyborg's organic eye widened with comprehension. "_That's_ how you guessed!"

Raven cradled her head in _both_ hands.

Robin seemed shocked, as well. "But...why?"

Starfire took a deep breath before making a panicked attempt at an explanation. "I was curious what manner of things you had acquired and when I saw the protective devices I was so excited at the prospect of undoing the mistake of the car I accidentally damaged their receptacles and then we were leaving and I had the panic and attempted to locate an intact receptacle within which to store them and all I could conceive of was the suitcase!" Her face was a deep shade of blue as she started to catch her breath.

Beast Boy stood there with his mouth agape. Raven surmised he was attempting to process Starfire's accelerated speech, and failing.

Cyborg cleared his throat. "Well, as _odd_ as that is, it _does_ make our construction job a whole lot easier."

Starfire smiled, and blushed slightly.

Robin cleared his throat, evidently unsatisfied with Cyborg's effort at the task. "We best get started. I'd hate to be late."

"Dude," Beast Boy whispered to Cyborg, "I can't believe she _went _there," indicating Starfire with a turn of the head.

Cyborg was silent for a couple seconds. "I have no comment," he finally whispered back.

Raven exhaled. "Let's just get this over with," she practically demanded.


	8. Too Convenient

"Looks like Control Freak was right," Cyborg said, "this _was_ an airport, a long time ago."

The single building they had seen far-off earlier turned out to be a hangar; the team was gathered there now. The runway and two other intact buildings weren't visible from their prior location, having been behind the hangar.

"In a galaxy far far away?" Beast Boy jokingly asked.

"I'm thinking three or four decades ago. That close enough for you?"

"Uhh...maybe?"

Robin attempted to steer the conversation back on target. "Anything we can use?"

"Well," Cyborg responded, "It's an enclosed area, should make a nice workspace. Doubt most of the machinery in the corner still works, but might be usable for parts or....Starfire, you OK?"

Starfire had removed her wristguards, and was consciously rubbing the backside of her forearms with her palms. He couldn't imagine that she was _cold_; he'd seen her wander around in a snowstorm without so much as a scarf added to her attire, and there was an entire _desert_ on the other side of the still-open hangar door.

"I do not require assistance," she insisted. "Please, how are you able to ascertain the approximate age of this facility?"

He looked at her for a couple seconds. She'd said before that she did not "require assistance", when he tried to help her carry what remained of the T-Car all the way out here. It _was_ his baby, and it just wasn't right to expect Starfire to do all the heavy lifting in any case. But she was adamant that she could take care of it without his assistance, and refused to let him help. It was a long trip though, particularly since they were traveling on foot, and he now suspected the extended duration had produced significant discomfort for her.

He could tell she wasn't inclined to discuss it, however, and respected her wishes. "The control mechanisms on most of that machinery are mechanical, not electronic," he said in answer to her question. "Found a radio though, that used individual transistors instead of integrated circuits, so that sorta narrows down the time frame. Kinda. Still mostly guessing," he admitted.

"We should check out the other buildings," Robin stated, "see if there's anything else we can use around here. Or any surprises waiting for us. I don't trust that this place just conveniently _happens_ to be here. Cyborg, you and Beast Boy take the one on the left. The rest of us will take the one on the right."

"Uhh...Robin?" Cyborg said. "It may be better if Raven and I took the one on the right, the other one's bigger and you might need more people and lights." Which was accurate, if not exclusively the reason for his suggestion.

"Well _I'm _certainly popular today," Raven deadpanned.

Robin looked at Cyborg, then at Raven, then at Cyborg again. "Fine," Robin eventually agreed, sounding rather suspicious. "Beast Boy, Starfire: Let's go. We've lost half an hour getting here, there's no time to waste." Cyborg was fairly sure that if either of _those_ two had made such a suggestion, Robin would've probed into the layout of the teams.

Starfire and Beast Boy were silent as they followed Robin out of the hangar, Starfire putting her wristguards back on as she walked.. Once they were out of sight, Raven practically stormed up to Cyborg.

"What do you want?" she inquired bluntly, the irritation evident in her eyes as she stared at Cyborg's face, waiting for a reply.

He was taken aback for a moment. "Uhh...Look, it isn't important enough for you to be bothered over; if you need some quiet, I'm cool with that."

Her irritation receded. "Thank you." She shook her head slightly. "It's alright, just...." She paused to take a deep breath. "Just give me a few minutes, OK?"

"Sure thing. Uhh...In here or over there?" he asked, indicating the site of their future search with a nod of his head.

She slowly looked over in that direction. "Let's get started," she said as she started walking toward the building in question, Cyborg soon keeping pace beside her.

* * *

"So, are we _sure_ this was an airport?" Beast Boy inquired.

"It is indeed most puzzling," Starfire added, "to consider a port of the aeroplane to have been placed in a location of such isolation."

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to have that runway out there _paved_," Robin answered, "especially as difficult as it must've been to get materials and equipment all the way out here. I'd say s_omeone_ highly valued their privacy."

Robin got the impression whoever designed the place wasn't as concerned with style, however. This room, the one nearest the hangar, looked to have been intended for both storage and regular foot traffic: Lines of empty pallet racks stood perpendicular to the large sliding door they'd entered through, with a four-foot-wide path leading off to a person-sized door on the right.

The racks were in poor condition, however, and significantly more damaged then standard wear-and-tear would be capable of. Robin's forensic sense had determined that some sort of combat exchange involving explosives had taken place here. He'd tasked Beast Boy and Starfire with searching for noticeable remnants of whatever might have been stored in here, while he underwent the more arduous process of searching for physical clues still intact from decades ago.

It appeared as though time had thwarted his efforts, however; and he could glean no further information. "No luck down here," he said. "You guys find anything?"

"No," Beast Boy said, with some degree of defeat in his voice. "No boxes, no stuff, _nothing_. Unless you're looking for deformed pieces of rack pretending to be modern art, there's tons of _that_."

"As surprising as it is given such an abundance of the rack," Starfire added, "only _one _has retained its pristine condition."

Robin's eyes twitched. He hoped that was an innocent use of terms on her part. He hoped even _more _that he wouldn't have to explain further. "Uhh...Starfire? The plural of 'rack' is 'racks'."

"Oh." She smiled somewhat apologetically.

Robin breathed a sigh of relief. Beast Boy still wasn't moving, however, presumably paralyzed with shock. While understandable, Robin didn't have the patience _or_ the time. "_Beast Boy_," he said with a precise level of both volume and annoyance, intending to pierce the fog that had enveloped his mind. It didn't work.

At least not until Starfire turned towards Beast Boy, at which point his attention abruptly focused on Robin. "Dude?" he said in acknowledgment, though it sounded slightly forced.

"Ready to move?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah!"

"Then let's go," Robin said as he turned the knob on the smaller door. Better not to give Beast Boy's mind a chance to wander back, he had decided.

To his surprise, the door failed to move. He relaxed his arm, then tried to gently push the door open again, shaking the doorknob. Once more, his force was resisted. Narrowing one eye and the accompanying segment of his mask, he made a deliberate effort to force the door open. To no avail. Furrowing _both_ brows, he braced his feet against the floor and pushed with all his might against the door with his shoulder.

Several seconds later, the door remained unyielding. Robin took several steps back, then yelled as he made a flying kick at the door. His boot resounded against the door, but otherwise had no noticeable effect. "_What?_" Robin said, between breaths, in disbelief. Not only was it unlikely that any unintentional obstruction could thwart him, but a door of normal construction couldn't _possibly_ have withstood such an application of force. This whole situation was getting more and more mysterious.

He was mentally debating the pros and cons of demolishing the door outright, when he noticed Starfire's form alighting to his left.

"May I make the attempt?" she inquired. Robin's response was to wordlessly step out of her way.

She gingerly attempted to open the door in the usual fashion. When that failed, she immediately set her footing and proceeding to push with her shoulder like Robin had just done, a growl steadily increasing along with the force she applied. The growl abruptly turned into a squeak of surprise when the door finally yielded.

She was probably expecting the door to yield by _opening_. Instead, with a loud set of wooden cracks the door acquired a deformity in the approximate shape of her shoulder. Robin was somewhat surprised she hadn't plunged through the door completely.

Starfire giggled, somewhat embarrassed. "Perhaps I was too intent on gaining entry?" There was another squeal when she extricated herself, as sand began pouring through the now-open tangle of wooden fiber.

"Are you OK?" Robin asked as he analyzed the new information. A mountain of sand taller than Starfire's _shoulder_ would certainly have enough volume to keep the door shut. And based on the way the door appeared to crunch inward without dropping significant fragments, he had to guess it was composed of some type of high-density fiberboard. Far sturdier then a standard door, and even more so with a wide surface of sand supporting it.

"I remain undamaged," Starfire reported.

Beast Boy spoke next. "So...do we break through the wall now?"

Robin evaluated the proposal in a fraction of a second. "No," he responded, "we might bring the roof crashing down on our heads." He observed the rate of sand flow, and recalled their remaining time. "Best if we wait for the sand to equalize, then you go through the hole and get the door open." He decided they could spare the few minutes for their own safety.

It turned out that Starfire had some curiosity to satisfy, anyway. "While we are speaking of things that may go crashing through the wall instead of opening the door, I am most curious: Why could the Control Freak not cause the T-Car to operate to his satisfaction after its shiny transformation? And like Cyborg, I too wish to know what the purpose of the 'alpha circuit' is."

Robin tackled the question about the T-Car. "It still had the holes and dents that were in it before, it was probably _still_ too damaged to be drivable."

Beast Boy had to think for a second. "I guess we _didn't_ see any episodes that mentioned the alpha circuit. Anyway, it's like...a _thing_, that _does_...something. They never say what it _actually _does, all I know is that KITT always has _some _sort of problem driving himself when his alpha circuit's damaged. What _kind _of problem changes all the time though."

"While that is helpful," Starfire said, "I am still uncertain why Raven's powers are similar to the alpha circuit."

Robin was similarly interested in an explanation, and waited for Beast Boy to provide one, Beast Boy being the expert on all things Knight Rider. When one wasn't forthcoming, he looked at Beast Boy, only to see the shapeshifter with a blank look on his face. And, while this surely was Robin's imagination, he was convinced he could hear tiny, slow clanks of metal emanating from Beast Boy's head; as though whatever gears evidently lay in there were operating _very_ slowly.

With Beast Boy temporarily out of commission, Robin was forced to derive his own analysis, combining his extensive knowledge of Raven's capabilities with pure extrapolation from Beast Boy's last few sentences. "I..._think_ it may be because he doesn't understand the restrictions and limitations on Raven's power any more then _we_ do. She can do a _lot_ of things, but she uses most of her powers infrequently. He's probably saying she only uses her less frequent abilities as the situation demands, like this alpha circuit thing seems to do whatever is dictated by the episode's plot...maybe."

Beast Boy blinked, then stared at Robin. "Dude, how did you _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Robin inquired in kind, confused.

"Make sense so fast."

"Lucky guess."

"Oh."

Starfire looked back and forth between the two boys a couple times. Her gaze finally settled on Robin. "Why is it when _you_ say the lucky guess you are believed, and when _I_ say the lucky guess you are suspicious?" She seemed slightly perturbed at the implied disparity in trust. Robin was certain the disparity in _honesty _between the two underlying instances was the key factor, but he wasn't about to _say_ that.

"Hey," Beast Boy objected, "I _totally_ didn't think you weren't lucky guessing. It was _Raven_ who thought you were being all sneaky." No one mentioned that Raven was _right_, of course.

Robin looked back at the door. In the time they'd been talking, the sand had poured itself into a roughly half-conical pile on this side of the door, two or three feet high at present. And the sand was still coming. He estimated it would be another five minutes before they should try to proceed. "I hope she and Cyborg are making better progress than we are."

* * *

"I hope they're doing better then _we_ are," Raven said.

"We're making good time finding nothing, at least," Cyborg sarcastically offered.

"And we've found _so much _of it, too," she sarcastically countered.

To be fair, they _had_ found a number of things. Electrical outlets, lights and switches; without any indication of a power source. A room with several bunk beds, or rather the bare frameworks thereof. What might have been an office, it was difficult to tell since an empty desk and a couple equally empty filing cabinets were all that remained. All of which did little more than remind Raven of how much they actually _knew_, and _that _certainly felt like nothing.

Raven didn't really mind the tedious, systematic searching. In fact, she found it rather refreshing. Beast Boy and Adonis had both been excruciating on her emotional fortitude in their own ways, and the almost mechanical process let that part of her mind recuperate. She would find it far more relaxing, however, if they were resolving more mysteries then they were discovering. As it was, it felt like they were merely wasting time.

The two of them walked into the next room, illuminating it with his shoulder lamp and the flashlight he'd graciously provided for her. Cyborg seemed satisfied with the negligible ambient light scattered about the room from their lights on the beige panels of the opposite wall, Raven presumed his electronic eye could distinguish such minute variances in shading. She, meanwhile, stepped forward from Cyborg's right, and somewhat clumsily turned her wrist to highlight regions of interest with her own light. She was aware that keeping her wrist close to her stomach was an awkward way to use a flashlight, but thought it more discomforting to extend or raise her arm to handle the light more conventionally.

The room wasn't particularly spacious; she estimated its dimensions at twenty feet by ten feet, their entry point on a ten-foot side. The wall panels were no different than the rest of the panelling they'd come across, which Cyborg had determined was simply decorative sheets of beige-painted wood. Of more interest were the stainless steel cabinets affixed to the wall on the left. Extending out two feet from the wall, two were attached to the ceiling on each end of the wall, leaving a space in the middle. Below them, a countertop spanned the entire width of the room, and below the ceiling gap there was....

"A sink?" Raven said in completion of her thought. That would identify the room as a kitchen of some sort, though she thought it odd that a kitchen would lack a means for heating food. Yet _another_ question posited by an answer.

"Huh," Cyborg said as he directed his shoulder lamp towards the sink's faucet. "Didn't _see_ any sort of water source."

Raven looked at the fixture herself for a couple seconds. Then she sighed, realizing her curiosity had already won. "Yeah, sure, why not," she muttered as made the brief walk towards the sink and experimentally turned both knobs on.

No water was forthcoming.

She sensed Cyborg's giddiness before he actually gave it voice. "Aww _right_! You found the first thing that made any _sense_!" he jubilantly exclaimed as he waltzed over to her, the ambient lighting increasing as his lamp neared the wall, with no trace of irony or sarcasm in his voice. He then raised his right arm and displayed an open hand. "High five! Come on! You know you wanna."

The worst part, in her mind, was that he was somewhat _right_; there was definitely a part of her that wanted to celebrate the rational mundaneness. That realization was fairly disturbing in its own right. She opted to look up at him quizzically, rather than yield to his claim.

He saw the look on her face. Then looked at his raised hand. Then looked at her face, and its noticeably lower elevation in relation to his hand. He put on an exaggerated smile, then lowered his hand to the height of his waist.

She rolled her eyes, and sighed, before briefly pressing an open hand of her own against his palm. She hoped the smile that snuck onto her lips wasn't too obvious.

"_Booyah!_" He probably wouldn't have noticed even if it _was_ too obvious.

In any case, she certainly felt more relaxed now. Relaxed enough to shift her attention to a different matter. "So what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Huh? Oh yeah," Cyborg said as his recollection overcame his merriment. "Have you noticed

Star's been acting strangely?"

"How so?" she asked in turn.

"She's been defensive over the T-Car or something. Wouldn't let me help her carry it out here. She's not usually so stubborn, that's the kind of thing I'd expect out of...well, me."

"Do you think she needed help?" Raven inquired, gently steering him towards his own answer as she steered herself towards the wall to her left.

"I guess she didn't _need_ any_, _since she _did_ manage it, but I think she hurt herself in the process. And said she didn't need help with that either."

Raven felt he was skipping some steps, but had pretty much lined everything out. "Hmm. Last night she _was _upset about...scorching the T-Car, I think?" she artfully prompted, leaning against a wall panel.

"Hmm." A couple seconds later, he put the pieces together. "Aww man," he lamented, "she's trying to prove she can take care of the T-Car, isn't she?"

"That _would_ make sense."

He sighed, loudly. "I _did_ yell at her. But I sure don't want her hurting herself just 'cause I was _mad,_" he said as he slowly walked towards the wall next to Raven. "Gotta snap her out of it somehow," he added, mostly talking to himself by that point.

Raven considered making some remark, but decided against it. Cyborg had just demonstrated that he _would_ ask for her input if he needed it.

"Uhh, Raven?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm...sorry about the 'Queen of No Pants' thing."

It took her a couple seconds to respond. Partly because that wasn't what she was expecting him to say, partly because she hadn't thought about it at all after its moment had passed, back on the road. "Don't worry about it."

"Seriously," he continued anyway, "I wasn't...I didn't think Adonis was _that_ disgusting."

"Don't remind me," she requested.

"Sorry. But we'll win this...thing Beast Boy came up with. Don't be scared," he said reassuringly.

"I'm not scared of him."

"Really? 'Cause you seem absolutely sickened by him. I know _I_ am."

She sighed, certain he wasn't going to like hearing the explanation. "Frankly, I'd turn him into a eunuch before he could _do_ anything to me. The whole situation still makes me nauseous, but I'm not afraid."

As she expected, he said nothing for several seconds, either unable or unwilling to fully process that. "Well OK then," he finally managed, as he leaned against the wall panel next to Raven's.

And fell straight through it with a snap, a snap that sounded louder than it actually was due to the lack of any of environmental noise.

Startled by the sudden volume spike, Raven snapped her head towards the source of the noise and jumped to her feet with a gasp. She quickly saw the hole where Cyborg used to be. "Cyborg!" she called out, not entirely conscious of how she ended up in front of that same gap so suddenly. To her relief he was right there on the floor, as opposed to at the bottom of some pit or other unforeseen calamity.

"Ow," he said as he started to rise from his prone position. "Just hasn't been my day for...." His voice trailed off, as did his ascent, when he saw his shoulder lamp lighting the wall now in front of them. "Whoa."

The wall's surface was covered with tiny rocks sticking out from a cement base, revealing it to be concrete. More interesting than that was the lack of decorative panelling in there. And even more interesting than _that_, the hallway's width matched that of the panel Cyborg had fallen through; this was almost certainly some sort of secret passage, hidden by the panel that Cyborg had just happened to try to support his weight against.

"Well _that's_ not suspicious," Raven sarcastically commented as she carefully guided her flashlight's beam down the length of the wall, with Cyborg's shoulder lamp soon doing the same with much more efficiency. Twenty feet down, the hall branched off to the left and right; how far in each direction couldn't be seen from here.

Cyborg resumed standing, his bulky size taking up most of the available width. "Let's check it out," he said as he started down the hallway. Raven soon followed behind him, since there simply wasn't enough room for her to walk alongside him unless he removed one of his arms.

When he got to the junction, Raven saw his head turn to the right, then to the left. He then turned to the left, reached out an arm, and retrieved a long wooden crate. As he stepped back, he was turning the box around in his hands to read the text imprinted on the side. Since he'd moved sufficiently out of the way, Raven took a look at the spot herself.

What Raven saw was a recess, only a foot or two deep, with three similar boxes leaning against the far wall. Cyborg appeared to have picked one from the middle, since two of the boxes were close to each other on the left, while the remaining one was off by itself on the right.

"Whoa!" Cyborg exclaimed from behind her. "A shoulder-launched wire-guided surface-to-air missile launcher. Wow."

Raven turned to face him, slightly confused. She knew what a missile launcher was, what surface-to-air meant, what shoulder-launched meant...."'Wire-guided'?" she inquired. Military technology wasn't one of her areas of expertise.

"Yeah." It took him only a fraction of a second to catch the question. "Way back," he explained, "missiles didn't carry their own guidance with 'em, kept it external. So the guider had to tell the missile what to do with itself _somehow_, and wire-guided setups did it by having a thin wire connecting the two. Ain't perfect, but can't be jammed like most signals."

"So...someone _really_ didn't like uninvited guests dropping by?" Since she was looking in that direction anyway, she shone her light behind Cyborg. There was a descending staircase in that direction, based on the ceiling's downward slope and the ending edge of the floor.

"Sure looks that way. And this is strange, but this isn't the original shipping container either; my scanners show most of the components are Russian and I'm _pretty_ sure they didn't stamp things in _English_ at the time. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make these boxes look like the real deal, though."

"Weird. Were they planning to _sell _them?"

"Could be, or maybe they bought 'em like this. But I don't get it, who'd want to _buy _second-hand rockets in the first place?"

"I'm sure _someone's_ allergic to airplanes." After a couple seconds, she remembered why they were in the building in the first place. "Do those things still work?" she inquired.

"Should," Cyborg responded. "Scanner doesn't show anything wrong with them, but...If it's all the same to you, I don't really want to open the box and mess with the things in the dark, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"Alright," she agreed. An explosive accident would be bad for Cyborg, and significantly worse for _her_. "We'll come here later, take them someplace..._lit_."

"Sounds good," he said as he gently placed the box in his hands back where he found it. "Now, what's over _here_...."

* * *

"Checked, checked and rechecked," Robin commented. "Nothing here but a bunch of sand and broken glass."

"Wonder if there's a recycling center around here," Beast Boy joked.

Starfire was saddened by the situation. The light of the sun poured in through the holes in the ceiling, and colors played along the many pieces of glass strewn where the lights touched the floor. She was positive the sight would have been even more beautiful if the glass were intact, and properly set within the circular frames of what had once been tables.

Robin had said there was some sort of unpleasant confrontation in here as well, though he was unable to determine its exact nature, that was responsible for both the fracturing of glass and the holes in the ceiling. The holes had been responsible for admitting sand into the room, and wind effects had been responsible for the sand collecting behind the barricade at the door she had accidentally punctured. A barricade which she guessed was somehow related to that confrontation as well.

In any event, Robin's statement was correct. The sand-reinforced barricade had only empty cabinets as its base. None of the sand, neither that large collection nor the tiny deposits against various edges on the floor, buried anything. The glass pieces had no capacity to hide things. And one of Robin's many skills had confirmed that whatever material comprised the table frames was too frail for their purposes. Whatever comforts this place had once provided, decay was its sole resource now.

"Let us proceed," she suggested. "I do not wish to remain in this place any longer."

"Alright," Robin responded, "let's go."

He and Beast Boy walked to the door that would lead onward, with Starfire floating towards the same destination. This door appeared to be identical in composition to the one they had entered through, but was thankfully not barricaded. It yielded easily as Robin turned the knob and pushed it.

The room beyond was dark. Starfire took it upon herself to resolve the matter of illumination: She flew in, raised her arm, and held an idle starbolt in her now-raised hand.

What she saw with the green lighting in place was a mostly empty concrete floor. The only objects of note were a series of small concrete dividing blocks extending away from the wall to her right, a land vehicle of some sort in one of the divided partitions, and an enclosure in the far corner. Imagery of an indoor parking lot came to her mind, though most parking lots she knew of used lines of paint and not concrete to separate parking spots.

Robin quickly followed, bringing his flashlight to bear towards areas of interest. He saw the vehicle as well, and the focused beam of light revealed that it had no wheels. He also detected the enclosure, and something Starfire hadn't yet seen: A large metal door on the opposite wall. A garage door, she believed the term was; it was the type of door with multiple attached sections that roll up vertically on a track.

The light then went up along the rails and to what Starfire presumed was a support mechanism for the door. She wasn't certain how it was supposed to work, but the cables and springs that she saw didn't appear to have any deficiencies.

Robin came to the same conclusion. "We'll look at the jeep later, when Cyborg's here, it's not going anywhere." So that was the name of the vehicle. "You two check out the side room," he said as he walked towards the door.

Starfire and Beast Boy did as instructed, but found only empty shelves along the inside of the enclosed area. They didn't have long to linger, as Robin quickly got their attention again.

"Uhh, Beast Boy?" he said shortly after the sound of the door raising.

The two of them went out of the area, Starfire mostly out of curiosity, and were greeted with the sight of wide open desert behind the now-open door.

"Why didn't you tell us there was another door on the outside?" Robin continued.

Beast Boy laughed sheepishly. "My bad."

Suddenly, Starfire heard a loud noise coming from the supposedly-empty enclosed area. Almost as though an unseen door had opened. She turned to face it, prepared for any threat. Instead, she saw Cyborg and Raven. "Friends!" Starfire squealed with delight, "It is glorious to behold you and not some transparent sand monster seeking to elude our detection and consume us whilst we thought it was merely ordinary dust!"

Raven blinked before replying. "Yeah...same to you."


	9. Preparation

"Everything check out?" Robin inquired of his team, all of them now in the hangar. He had held off on asking the question until they had regrouped there, so as not to interfere with the very task he was asking about.

"Place looks secure," Cyborg responded. "Whatever happened here, it's long since stopped being a threat."

No other comments were forthcoming, presumably because Raven had nothing to add to Cyborg's appraisal, and neither Beast Boy nor Starfire had anything to say that Robin hadn't already considered.

"Alright." Robin said. "What's the plan for this..._thing_ we're supposed to build?"

Cyborg sighed. "Have to cannibalize the T-Car," he said with sadness, a tear forming in his eye. "Engine's usable, some of the weapons too. For the rest...." He paused, quickly shaking his head. His voice had its normal tone when he continued. "Gonna cut strips out of it, form a resilient chassis. Shape steel plates from the stuff around here, attach 'em, layer Starfire's presents over that." Robin heard Starfire softly giggle.

"What about the jeep?" Robin asked.

"We'll have to see if it's sturdy enough to form the chassis base. I kinda doubt it, but it's easy enough to find out."

"And those missiles?"

"Got something special planned. Look man, I know you like to be all leader-type-ish, but I got this one all taken care off."

The comment set off a nerve, and Robin was tempted to exert authority over the operation. He probably would've done so, if it weren't for Raven _and_ Starfire setting their eyes on him to see his reaction. Tactically, Raven would reinforce Cyborg, and the resource expenditure required to placate Starfire's curiosity and concern for all her teammates would be excruciating.

The immediate situation was sufficient to ward off a snap decision, and with a little rational thought he realized that Cyborg _would_ be the best choice for leading a mechanical operation such as this. "Fine," Robin relented.

Beast Boy chose that moment to offer his own version of commentary. "You know, this doesn't seem very A-team-y. I thought it'd be more...A-team-ish."

"Trust me," Cyborg responded, "I'd love to have the entire thing done in a couple minutes with just a montage and theme song backing it. But we'll have to do this _without_ the magic of television."

"But _why_?"

"Because Control Freak would mess it up."

"Please," Starfire interjected, "what is this team of the A? Is it like our team of the T?"

Cyborg opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by Beast Boy's enthused voice.

"Yeah it is!" he said. "See, Robin is like Hannibal—"

Starfire's horrified gasp ended the sentence abruptly. "But, Robin does not consume human flesh...does he?"

"Not _that_ Hannibal," Raven nonchalantly explained before Robin's mind had a chance to collapse on itself.

"Anyway," Beast Boy continued, "Cyborg is B.A.—"

"Yo!" Cyborg interrupted. "Why am _I_ B.A.?"

"Because _you're _the one with the bad attitude!"

"Oh yeah?" Cyborg responded, slightly indignant.

"Yeah."

"Y_eah?!_"

"_YEAH!!_" Beast Boy exclaimed, attempting to top Cyborg's tone.

"Well..._Mister __**C**__ ain't got no time for your jibba-jabba!_"

Raven added, to the surprise of all three boys, "I think you've just been pitied."

Beast Boy turned his head towards Raven, and opened his mouth and raised his index finger to object. His face quickly devolved into a blank stare, however. And given the choice between making an inelegant transition back to his listing or making a doomed attempt to dispute Raven, he quite predictably chose the former.

"I, of course, am Face," he continued, putting on a mock-sophisticated expression that, to Robin's knowledge, had never managed to convince anyone.

Cyborg cut in again. "You can't be Face."

Beast Boy looked at Cyborg with a small scowl. "Dude, why do you keep interrupting?"

Cyborg responded by leaning forward and asking the question to end all questions: "So who's Murdock? Starfire or Raven?"

It took a measurable amount of time for Beast Boy's mind to work through the question to the only possible conclusion. Robin measured the time as three seconds. Beast Boy's shoulders slumped, and he resumed his list, his voice now devoid of mirth.

"I'm Murdock. Starfire's Face. Raven's one of those what's-her-names. Amanda I think."

Cyborg had a comment _here_, too. "Uhh...You mean Amy? She's the one that was there since the pilot but left half-way into the second season, remember?"

"So," Raven said, "I'm the one with the sense to get off the sinking ship? Fine by me."

Responding to the question, Beast Boy said "Raven's not like Hannibal, B.A., Face _or_ Murdock; so she _has _to be whoever's left. Who cares who was in the whoever spot on the show?"

Cyborg took a deep breath. "I guess that's a tolerable excuse. Now before Robin blows a gasket, let's get this party started. Robin, you'll be responsible for salvaging weapons and other functional equipment that remains in the T-Car."

"Sure," Robin agreed, happy that he wasn't the only one concerned with the timetable.

"Raven," Cyborg continued, "We'll be putting the new vehicle together."

"Nice," was her only response.

"Starfire, you'll...be helping Raven and me."

Starfire's joyous giggling was interrupted by a gasp. "But, I do not know how to assemble a mechanism of such complexity."

"That's OK," Cyborg explained, "'cause I bet you can bend and cut metal to fit the shapes we need."

"Ooh," she responded, apparently enthralled with the concept.

"Hey," Beast Boy interrupted, "What about _me_? What am _I_ gonna do?"

Cyborg hesitated for a second before he attempted to answer. "Uhh...." was all that issued from his mouth, however.

But Robin had taken note of the pause, the panicked widening of Cyborg's eye, the forced return to normal size of that same eye. Even without noting the slight tonal distinction, Robin would have been well aware that Cyborg was caught off-guard not because he hadn't considered what to assign Beast Boy to, but because he hoped he wouldn't _need_ to assign Beast Boy to anything.

A situation Robin could appreciate, but he wouldn't broadcast that reaction in such a manner.

"I got it!" Beast Boy said, with just enough enthusiasm to cause concern. "The montage needs its theme song. I'll do _that_!"

Cyborg couldn't formulate an adequate response here, either. "Uhh...."

"May I, too, sing our song of the theme?" Starfire inquired.

Beast Boy's face contorted in what might be construed as an expression of thought. "_Our _theme song isn't quite right for it...Do you know the words to the A-Team theme song?"

Starfire simply shook her head, while Cyborg grit his teeth in distress.

"Me either," Beast Boy admitted. "It can't be _that_ hard to remember them, though." He then started to slowly walk around the remains of the T-Car, nonsensically muttering to himself, while an overly-curious Tamaranean floated along behind him.

Cyborg quickly stepped towards Robin, and his voice was lower when he spoke: "Uh, you better work away from here. I'll get the pieces we need, then we'll move the rest towards the opposite corner."

Robin lowered an eyebrow in confusion, as Raven levitated towards Cyborg's left. "What?"

"There _are_ no words to the A-Team's theme song," Cyborg continued.

"Which isn't going to stop Beast Boy," Raven concluded.

A minor outburst from the shapeshifter intruded into the conversation. "I got it!" Beast Boy was exclaiming. "I'll just have to make the words to _our_ theme song fit."

The thought of Beast Boy composing _and_ performing songs was enough to fill even Robin with foreboding.

Raven spoke next. "It's too late for _us_, Robin. Save _yourself_, while you still can."

Cyborg raised his right hand to his forehead, in salute.

Robin opened his mouth to protest, but when he realized he wasn't sure what part he was intending to protest, he closed his mouth and simply returned the salute.

With that, Cyborg lowered his arm and turned around. "Starfire," he said in sufficient volume to get the distracted girl's attention.

"Hmm?" she replied.

"First, I'm gonna remove the stuff we need for the welding, and then I'd like you to move the rest of the car to that corner over there, so Robin's got room to work with it."

Starfire smiled and nodded.

"Secondly," Cyborg continued, "since Beast Boy didn't really tell you anything _about_ the A-Team...."


	10. Montage

_(bonus disclaimer: I don't own the A-Team theme song, as catchy as its melody is.)_

* * *

_* WHEN THERE'S TROUBLE, WE'RE WHO YOU CALL *  
_

"Does he _have_ to keep singing?" an annoyed Raven rhetorically asked, as she levitated the jeep's engine out of its chassis.

"What singing?" Cyborg countered as he inspected the cavity, to see what'd be necessary for it to accommodate the T-Car's plasma turbine engine. "All _I_ can hear is Beast Boy screeching something that _used_ to resemble a melody."

"Does he have to keep _screeching_?"

_  
* BECAUSE FROM OUR TOWER, WE CAN SEE IT ALL; POM POM *  
_

"Huh," Cyborg remarked, mostly to himself. "This could go faster then I thought."

"That'll work for the chassis after all?" Raven asked, indicating what was left of the jeep with a slight turn of her head.

"That's part of it, yeah. But mostly...."

He paused as Starfire flew over, carrying a highly shaped plate of metal of her own working. He thanked her, and as she went back to work on the next piece, he placed the plate over the junction of various braces he'd asked her to make the plate for. Despite the complex geometry at that point in the framework, the piece fit quite snugly.

"...I didn't think she'd pick this up _that_ quickly," he finished. "At this rate we'll have the substructure done half an hour early."

_* WHEN THERE'S BAD GUYYYYYS ON THE ATTACK *  
_

"Cyborg," Robin asked, "Is there really any sense in having this sonic shielding? _We're_ usually the ones with the sonic weapons. And by 'we' I mean 'you'."

"Yeah," Cyborg acknowledged, "but this way we can mute Control Freak and Adonis. And Beast Boy."

"Good thinking."

_* YOU CAN REST KNOWING THAAAAAAT WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK AND THE REST OF YOU *  
_

"Cyborg," Raven said as she looked away from the terminal that had just refused her access for the fifth time, "What'd you say the password was again?"

Cyborg, in turn, looked away from his calibration of the now-transplanted plasma turbine engine and walked up to Raven. Glancing around from side to side, he leaned in before he whispered the response: "Caracus."

"That's what I've been trying. Wait. How do you spell that?"

Cyborg sighed, and rolled his eye in annoyance. "C-A-R-A-C-U-S," he whispered.

"Oh, it's a 'U'," Raven said as she tried the password with the corrected spelling, this time being greeted with a configuration menu on the display instead of an authentication error.

"Yeah," Cyborg added with a slight degree of confusion, "What did you think it was?"

"An 'A' instead of a 'U'. Like the real name."

Cyborg's confusion intensified. "Huh? It's like 'Baracus' except it starts with a C, 'cause I'm Mr. C and all. What real name?"

Raven lowered one eyebrow and raised the other. "The capital of Venezuela?"

"It is? Huh."

_* 'CAUSE WHEN YOU NEED HEROES ON PATROL...WE'RE-HERE-OR-SOMETHING *  
_

"Hey Starfire," Cyborg called out, "could you—"

"Don't interrupt her singing," Raven cut him off.

Cyborg looked at Raven, then back at Starfire. She _was_ still singing along with Beast Boy, which was the main reason he was trying to get her attention in the first place. She didn't seem to have heard him, though.

He looked back at Raven. "Why not?" he inquired.

"She's drowning out Beast Boy."

He stared at Raven for several seconds, before returning his attention to the car with a growl. "Stupid enhanced hearing," he grumbled under his breath. _"Why no_, they said, _he'll __**never**__ want to turn it off_. Now I'm stuck listening to Beast Boy screech 'cause some genius was too lazy to build an off switch...._"_

_* WITH OUR SUPERPOWERS WE UNITE *  
_

"Pulse repeaters are in workable condition," Robin began his status report, "though you might want to recalibrate the wavelength, it wasn't quite—"

His voice trailed off, as his mind kicked into overdrive at the unexpected state of their vehicle-in-progress. A particular aspect of its state, to be precise. "A half-track?"

"Sure is," Cyborg replied with enthusiasm.

"But...how did you get the materials for the track?"

"Resourcefully," was Cyborg's playful reply.

"Trust me," Raven advised, "Just let it go."

"'Let it go'?!?!" Robin objected.

Cyborg made an exaggerated display of disappointment in the shaking of his head. "Man, you gonna counteract our efficiency by _questioning _it?"

"...Fine."

_* NEVER MET A VILLAIN THAT WE LIKED—UNLESS-TERRA-COUNTS *  
_

"Energy systems pass their own diagnostics," Raven reported, "and output efficiency is within tolerable, but not optimal, range."

Cyborg scratched his chin. "That's about all I can expect without dedicated equipment. Alright, next thing we need is a live fire test....HEY BEAST BOY!"

Cyborg could _feel_ the look Raven was giving him.

"Relax," he countered. "I'm not _really_ gonna hurt him. Besides, if he's in the form of an animal he won't be singing, so—"

"_Do it_," Raven interjected, a little too eagerly.

_* WE'VE GOT THE BAD GUYS ON THE...WELL-THEY'RE-GONNA-BE-RUNNING *  
_

"See?" Cyborg said with mock vindication. "He ain't hurt, didn't even break his concentration."

"I still can't believe you _shot_ him," Raven countered.

"_I_ still can't believe he volunteered to be shot _at_."

"Somehow, _that_ I can believe."

_* WE WON'T STOP UNTIL THE JOB IS DONE *  
_

Robin looked on, one eyehole wide. "Has he _really_ been singing the same tune for the past hour?"

"Yeah," Cyborg replied, "except for a couple pauses."

"One of which involved being the target in a live fire exercise," Raven added.

"He's _fine_," Cyborg said to preempt the impending outburst, "And he volunteered for it too!"

"Right," Robin said, with an unhealthy mix of acceptance and suspicion. "I hate to question it, but if Beast Boy's fine, is it strong enough to do any good?"

"It disoriented him, as an armadillo, on low-power shallow-dispersion. In focused mode with eight times the energy backing it, we'll do just fine against Control Freak and Adonis."

Raven added, "And it _did_ give us a lull in the noise."

Robin contemplated for a fraction of a second. "Good. And at least it can't get much worse than—"

His voice trailed off at the sudden venomous stares from Cyborg and Raven, just long enough....

_* WE WILL OBEY THE TRAFFIC RULES *  
_

...for him to realize what he'd done.

"You just _had_ to say it," Raven chastised.

Robin sighed. He'd always been ambivalent about the Titans having their own theme song, but the Japanese version was more of a transmogrification than a translation.

And now Beast Boy was singing the translation of that transmogrification.

_* WE WILL EAT EVERYTHING WITHOUT LIKES OR DISLIKES; POM POM *  
_

Robin eyed the more-or-less complete shape of the vehicle. It appeared inadequate to his eye. "Is there really going to be enough room in there for _all_ of us?"

"There's room," Raven started to answer, "but—"

"Not when we start fighting," Cyborg finished. "Simply can't make the thing big enough to let _all _of us participate in that. The way I see it, I'll drive, you and Raven can handle the turrets. Starfire and Beast Boy do better out in the open, anyway."

"Don't you think they'll be unhappy about that?"

"Man, if we're fighting all the way home, we'll all be unhappy about _that_. I'll find some way to break the _temporary_ inconvenience to 'em."

_* EARTHQUAKES LIGHTNINGS FIRES AND DADS *  
_

"Alright y'all," Cyborg announced. "Most of the big pieces are in place, all we've got left is the last sonic cannon for the top turret. It's all wiring and software config from there."

"Glorious!" Starfire exclaimed. "I have never even _seen_ such an extensive device assembled from its components. To have taken part in its construction is both fascinating and intriguing."

"Sure is," he agreed. Even after all the things he had built, even after having been built _of_ so many things, there was still a feeling of exhilaration and accomplishment every time he artfully coerced a pile of trivially utilitarian parts into a beautifully functioning machine.

"So," Raven inquired after a couple seconds, "what's next?"

His miniature reverie concluded, Cyborg promptly answered. "Haven't tested the drive system with all the weight on the frame. So, who's with me?"

"Uhh...sure," Raven halfheartedly volunteered.

"Then I believe I should instead provide Beast Boy's accompaniment," Starfire said with a tinge of regret in her voice.

"Well," Cyborg responded, "whatever you think is best, Star. Come on, Raven."

As Cyborg and Raven walked towards the yet unnamed vehicle, Cyborg added: "And if it's just the two of us, we can try out the sonic shielding on BB's singing."

Raven practically leapt the rest of the way.

_* GRRRRAMMARS AND MAAAAAAAAAAAAATHS, SCIENCE, SOCIAL STUDIES AND THAT JUNK *  
_

Robin could see the upper half of Cyborg sticking out of a hatch on top of the vehicle, and could see his mouth moving. But he couldn't hear the words themselves. And if it weren't for his highly trained senses, he would've missed the extremely subtle sound that vaguely resembled Cyborg's tone of voice.

Cyborg eventually noticed the quizzical look Robin was intentionally wearing. He raised an index finger, and ducked back into the cockpit. A moment later, Robin's finely tuned senses detected a very quiet pop. All of a sudden he could hear the quiet, but easily noticeable rumble of an engine emanating from the vehicle, as Cyborg resumed his prior position.

"Booyah!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Sonic dampers are workin' _great_!"

"Nice work," Robin agreed.

"Control Freak won't be the _only_ one with a 'mute' button."

_* THERE IS NOTHING WE ARE AFRAID OF—THAT-I-CAN-THINK-OF-ANYWAY *  
_

"We're in business!" Cyborg announced. "All set to go, and with half an hour to spare!"

"Finally," Robin said, "We can get back to apprehending those two."

"Friends?" Starfire interjected. "We appear to be lacking Beast Boy's attention."

Cyborg shook his head. "Ain't exactly a _new _thing, Star," he replied.

Raven growled. "Oh for the love of...."

_* HOLLER HOLLER HOLLER HOLLER OUR NAMES *  
_

"**BEAST BOY, CUT IT OUT!**" Cyborg and Raven commanded in unison, Raven fully aware she was only contributing an undertone behind Cyborg's volume.

_* heh heh...half your troubles will be gone? *  
_


	11. Prepare for Battle

While Starfire was elated in seeing their group project completed, the feeling paled in comparison to watching it in action. Or more specifically, admiring the view out of the left topside hatch as the thing plodded around the buildings.

Not that the view _itself_ was particularly admirable. The gently sloping surface of the vehicle was an unsightly mess of mismatched thin iron plates, though Starfire knew they were there to cover the simple black ablative plastics underneath. Even uglier were the two large protrusions out of the surface on her right, which Robin and Cyborg repeatedly called "turrets". In every other direction, the sweeping desert; the buildings that comprised the abandoned airport being obscured by the turrets' bulk. And on top of all this, the speed was passable; but Starfire could fly faster under her own power if she so decided.

Nevertheless, there was just something about having participated in the construction of this lumbering machine. Some sense of connection with it. It wasn't the view that was exhilarating, it was the knowledge that she had made the view _possible_.

Her reflection was interrupted by the increasing volume of voices from below. Her curiosity piqued, Starfire floated gently back inside the vehicle.

"—I just _told you_ it isn't very fast," Cyborg was saying from the driver's position, in front of the diamond arrangement of the other seats. In an annoyed tone that made Starfire suspect he was responding to a comment from Beast Boy. "But it's easier to fight if the thing _hasn't_ been blown to pieces, so I had to sacrifice speed to get more armor on it."

"But dude," Beast Boy's countered from the seat opposite Starfire's, his voice still hoarse from his extended sing-a-thon, "How come K.I.T.T. was indestructible _and_ fast?"

Cyborg growled in response, a sound that somehow managed to be heard over the engine. "First," his voice reverberated slightly due to the cramped interior, "that was a television show. Second, you were using the A-Team theme song, not Knight Rider's."

"But it's too hard to go da-da-da-da-_da_-_da-da-da_—"

"_THIRD,_" Cyborg cut him off, "K.I.T.T. had a lightweight ultratough alloy for the superstructure, and the steel I had to use is a heck of a lot heavier."

"Oh."

"What about weaponry?" Robin prompted from the front of the diamond configuration.

"Well," Cyborg responded in a more relaxed tone, "I got heavy duty energy projectors up here, the forward turret where you are's got those pulse repeaters, and the back turret's a heavy sonic cannon. Uhh, that's you Raven," he concluded slightly louder.

"I know," she responded from the back of the diamond.

Starfire couldn't help but notice a couple of names unaccounted for. "But, what are Beast Boy and I to do?" she inquired.

The engine was the only source of noise for the next couple seconds, before Cyborg answered.

"Uhh, well," he said sounding slightly apprehensive, "You two do best when you have room to manuever, so—"

"We're going outside, _aren't_ we?" Beast Boy concluded with an accusatory tone, before breaking into a coughing fit from overexerting his sore throat with his emphasis. Starfire was downcast, though she did not give her disappointment voice.

Cyborg craned his head towards the right, with his mouth open. Then he closed his mouth, turned his head all the way around and addressed Starfire.

"Star, what do you think? Should I be out there and leave the driving to someone else; should Robin be out there and have to run to keep up with everything; or should Raven be out there in reach of—"

"I said not to remind me," Raven cut in.

"Sorry," Cyborg sheepishly replied.

Meanwhile, Starfire was evaluating his statement. As much as she wanted to stay with the creation that was at least partially hers, she couldn't deny the merits of Cyborg's claims: She and Beast Boy _were_ far more directly reliant on their personal powers than Robin and Cyborg, who could adequately apply their technical talents to vehicular operation. And knowing that Adonis' proximity caused Raven emotional distress, it was simply unthinkable to propose an external position for her.

None of this made Starfire _like_ the necessary outcome. She made a long, listless sigh. "I cannot conceive of a more acceptable arrangement," she admitted.

Her peripheral vision detected Beast Boy looking back and forth between herself and Raven. "Fine," he finally relented.

"And the missiles?" Robin prompted.

"_Still_ got something special planned," Cyborg answered. "We got it all under control here."

"Wait," Beast Boy croaked. "We need a name for this thing. I vote for...R-Madillo."

"Armadillo?" Cyborg inquired.

"You know, like R-Cycle, except different."

"Why?" Robin asked with some trepidation.

"'cause it'll tick Control Freak off."

Silence reigned for a few seconds.

"Well," Raven finally said, "it's as good a choice for criteria as any."

"It'll do," Robin agreed.

The sound of an instrument beeping interrupted the conversation.

"Got the name figured out just in time," Cyborg said, "'cause those two are a couple minutes early."

* * *

Raven floated partway through her entry hatch on the back of the newly christened R-Madillo, choosing to keep her waist and below within the confines of the vehicle. From her vantage point she saw Starfire similarly floating partially out of the vehicle, Robin performing one of those overly stylized leaps to land on top of the turret immediately behind him and thus a short distance in front of herself. Beast Boy, she heard struggling as a pair of hands attempted to pull their owner's weight up to the hatch, before he gave up and managed to fit a baby giraffe's neck through. Cyborg she couldn't see on account of the height Robin's turret, but she had no doubt he'd arrange an unobstructed view of his own.

A short distance in front of the R-Madillo was Control Freak, visually evaluating their vehicle with a skeptical eye from the relative comfort of his own vehicle. It wasn't that van, though; it appeared he'd stuck some sort of blocky contraption on what she guessed was the car he'd stolen at the beginning of this extended fiasco, and was driving _that_ for whatever reason.

She saw Adonis too, but the sickening smile he gave when he caught her eye reminded her of why she was trying not to think about him.

Fortunately, Control Freak drew everyone's attention by giving voice to his appraisal.

"_This_ is all you could come up with?" he asked incredulously. "It's an ugly box with two things sticking out of it!"

An odd hiss to Raven's right caught her attention. Beast Boy stopped abruptly, transformed into a hummingbird half a second later, and finished by reverting to his human form on top of the R-Madillo.

"_Our_ thingy's got two more cool thingies then your van thingy!"

Control Freak scowled in return, as though that were an accusation. "The Freakout is _way_ cooler than anything _you_ guys have!"

"If it's _so cool_," Cyborg cut in from out of Raven's view, "why isn't it here?"

"Because..._because!_"

"Uh-huh...." Robin said with a finely tuned mixture of sarcasm and apathy. It wasn't _quite_ as smooth as Raven's vocal balancing, but she was certain Robin was deliberately leaning on the sarcasm.

"Dude, " Beast Boy said, "why'd you put the huge ugly thing in the Knight Rider car?"

"Which?" Raven asked without missing a beat, while Control Freak gave her a confused look.

"Uhh...the big fat thing."

Cyborg played along. "Gotta narrow it down," he said. Control Freak frowned in what Raven had to assume was Cyborg's general direction.

"In the _back_!" Beast Boy elaborated.

"Oh _that_ one...." Cyborg mused.

"AHEM!" Control Freak interrupted. "_That_ would be a highly sophisticated mimetic ordinance assembly, specifically designed to to configure itself to match the active implement of my personal arsenal on a larger scale, in realtime."

If anyone was confused by the haphazard application of a thesaurus, it wasn't Starfire: "It becomes a larger version of whatever weapon you are using?"

"Why does it sound dumb when _you_ say it?" Control Freak whined.

"It sounded dumb when you said it, too," Raven pointed out.

"Can _any_ of you wimps do something _besides_ talk?" Adonis cut in.

"Maybe it's time to find out," Robin responded.

Adonis laughed. "You _really_ think you can take me on?" Then, to Raven's dismay, he addressed her directly: "Come on babe. You did this before, and we beat you all. You can't win. How about we skip this little game and get right down to the..._fun_." He ended with a lustful tone that turned Raven's stomach.

But for her part, she stared him down, resolute. "We did. You did. Yes we can. **NO**."

Control Freak shook his head at Adonis and growled. "Enough talk!"

Robin issued his own cue: "Titans, go!"

Within a second, he and Raven were back in their gunner seats, while Starfire and Beast Boy flew off into the air.


End file.
